Yarn Over - Get Over It!

So things are going well except for you know what…I just need to get over it.

I just joined Ravelry.com - A really fantastic site for yarn-using types.  It wasn’t what I expected either.  Yes, it had all the basic elements I thought I’d see like other knitters, pictures and discussions of projects, patterns, etc.  Nice forums pages, too.  It also has a personal Notebook that each person can use to organize projects, inventory needles and hooks, a library for your books and patterns and best of all, a queue list for projects you want to do later.  Sound like somebody knows me (us).  I am very impressed and I cannot wait to dig into this site (after the birthday dinner).  There is more but you really have to just go there and look around.

The real mess for me will be inventory on the needles and hooks.  I have duplicates like nobody’s business.  I crocheted and knitted as a child so I have stuff my grammy and aunts gave me.  I have been able to cast-on for knitting and crochet a chain since childhood.  I have (somewhere) a knitted baby blanket that I made probably 20 years ago.  The stitching looks pretty good but the yarn was some kind of acrylic blend and I don’t think I would lay a baby on it.  I’m sure that was all that was available to me at the time—small town, no internet or mail order.  I really only vaguely remember making this thing.  I think I made it for a friend but I don’t know why I didn’t give it to her.  Maybe I made her a baby quilt instead.  That seems very likely.  I need to dig that thing out and make pictures of it.

I tried again in my twenties and then again in my thirties but I wanted something “made” and was not interested in the process.  That makes me impatient.  I just never really finished much because I didn’t know much and I have always had too much on my plate.  Of course, after looking at some of the notebooks on Ravelry I see that I am really not as unusual as I thought.  There are some over-achievers there for sure.  They make me look pretty lethargic.  I have to laugh because I can really identify.

I am still considering the many projects I’ve started lately to be practice.  I have learned so much about yarns, needles, technique, etc.  For example, I tried to knit a ribbed watch cap out of superwash wool on plastic circular needles.  I thought I was going to pull my hair out.  The creaking of the yarn along the needles alone was enough to make me insane. So I ordered a pair of the nickel plated ones.  I thought, “OMG!”  The difference was amazing.  So there it is -- confessions of a noob.