knit one, purl two

Last year sometime I decided that one of my goals for 2009 was to learn how to knit.
A month ago (exactly) I met with my friend Stephanie and she introduced me to the basics of knitting. I worked on some basic knitting techniques for about two weeks and got wickedly frustrated...so much that I was nearly finished attempting to go on. A few of my other friends popped up and mentioned that they are also knitters - which led me a little bit more into wanting to learn how to do this task that [until I started doing it] appeared so easy.

I bought a book (http://www.knithappens.com/content/view/13/1/ ) that Steph recommended (that I am now in love with) and started reading. It walks through the basics of knitting and even recommends some beginners projects. I decided to start with one of those. I figured that I needed to start somewhere. So, I went to an actual yarn store (www.stitchknitch.com) and asked the lady to recommend some beginners yarn (the yarn I had previously been working with was not a good yarn to learn with) and what needles were best.

I worked with these and was able to produce what my book calls "baby's first swatch" and I was VERY proud of this little square of yarn. I had finally created something. It was mostly square (as I had made a few mistakes), but it was all mine. No one could take that away from me.
I decided to see what the book recommended next. A scarf. And I wouldn't have to use the purl stitch (which I am having a very hard time learning). Yee haw. So...off I went in search of massive size 17 needles and some uber-thick yarn for my first official creation.

I started Thursday evening and finished 3 of the 12 blocks of colour for the scarf. Friday I went to work on it and messed up the first section so badly I had to unravel it and the 3rd section I had completed the day before. I ended up finishing three on Friday - to bring my net total to 5 of my 12 sections. Saturday I was a knitting fool and finished the rest of the seven sections. I had finally finished something! I had made several mistakes, but I had fixed them all and ended up with a massive but very respectable scarf. Over 3,000 loops of yarn in a pattern that wound up as a scarf that were all knitted on my fingers.

I'm pretty proud of myself.