My knitting projects

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I learned how to knit on the 16th of June of 2021. Yeah I remember the exact date. I always had a curiosity to learn but my mom wasn't too keen on teaching me for some reason. I don't remember if it was due to prejudice and people potentially thinking of me as a fag or some shit, or if she just didn't quite feel like it.

Then, I woke up one fateful morning and asked her to hand me some knitting supplies so I could learn on my own. I don't remember what inspired me to do that. Either way, I think she didn't wanna feel bad about not helping, so she came up to me and gave me some pointers to get started. I learned a couple of basics from her over a few days, and picked up the rest on my own.

My mom was not exactly a great teacher, she didn't have much patience and would get mad seeing that I had trouble making a single stitch at all. Said things like I was no good at it and I should give up. I don't blame her, I think she had that sort of communication baked into her from an earlier age.

It took me an entire day to figure out how to make a basic knit stitch, but after I figured it out, I kept practicing and practicing until I managed to make an ugly swatch that I could call my own.

Once I had enough length for the ugly swatch to wrap around my wrist, I asked my mom for help on closing out the project. She taught me how to bind off stitches, and told me to come to her once I was done with that and I had only one stitch left. Then she showed me how I was supposed to close out that final stitch, and then sew the whole thing together. I was impressed with how cleanly the sewing went for being my first time.

I figured that wristbands were a pretty easy project to practice with, they're also pretty useful during the winter months, and as a general use garment. I bought some blue and pink yarn and decided to make one in each color as a mismatched pair.

Progress was so painfully slow on my first few items that I felt like a disgrace, but little by little I became faster and more precise in my knitting.

I then decided that I wanted to try making something in two colors, and in seed stitch. It was an interesting project, but even slower than the first wristbands I'd made, since seed stitch is really slow to knit. I made a pair of these two-colored wristbands and gave them as a present to a coworker.

One of my goals as a knitter was to make a pair of gloves. At the time I didn't quite understand the complexity of such a task. I watched a video tutorial and tried to replicate what the lady did in the video, but at some point I had to stop because it was obviously way above my league. The good thing is that I learned how to work a project with circular needles.

With the gloves now in limbo, I got the urge to make a scarf. A basic one in garter stitch was good enough for now. I believe it took me a month to finish, I was still quite slow at the time and this was a relatively large project. Fortunately scarves are really easy if you're not doing any peculiar stitch work. 16 stitches per row was all I needed with the rather chunky yarn I used.

I believe I restarted this project once, I'd made a bunch of progress before I learned how to relax my hands for easier knitting. The difference was stark; the beginning of the scarf had this really tight, uncomfortable look, while the rest had a uniform, relaxed shape. I didn't really like it so restarting made sense. I think I did something really stupid though, I tried unraveling the scarf from the cast-on row and it was a mess. Nothing I couldn't fix though, except the fix involved destroying the whole project and starting from scratch.

By now, I was absolutely determined to make a pair of gloves. I picked up the old glove and restarted it so I could take advantage of my improved knitting skills. I made important progress, learned how to make increases and how to shape the thumb.

Unfortunately, progress was halted once again, I don't know if due to technical issues, or because I got distracted. I can tell from photos that I bought some nice brown yarn and then set out to make mittens instead, but I don't remember the full story at this point.

Anyway as I was saying, I wanted to make gloves with the brown yarn too, but I decided to go for mittens instead. The difference is that mittens are completely open around the fingers, instead of being shaped for each finger. As such, they're far easier to knit.

The process of making mittens is quite easy compared to making fingered gloves. The shape of the thumb is achieved with simple increases, then once you have enough stitches for the thumb, you separate them from the main glove using a piece of thread or similar, and keep knitting the rest. Because no fingers will be made, you just keep knitting more rows until you achieve the length that you want for the top of the mittens. Once that's done, you can close off the thumb stitches.

With the experience gained from making the mittens, I felt more comfortable with the idea of finishing THE GLOVE. Except, I didn't do that at all. I tried making a blanket with the leftover blue and pink yarn from the wristbands I showed earlier, but that ended up in limbo as well, and eventually destroyed.

I kept procrastinating on that glove project. Sometimes you just feel like making different things instead, this is completely natural and it's part of the artistic process. My next obsession turned out to be a red candy bag. It was an easy project but I never liked how it turned out. However I did learn some valuable skills from it that I'd put to good use later on.

I learned from making that candy bag that it's a terrible idea to do this with magic loop, since the whole thing lacks a solid structure due to essentially being shaped like a tube rather than a flat bag. It's better to just knit two or three separate pieces and then sew them together at the end, this way the finished item ends up with a sturdier structure. I also learned from this that stockinette stitch tends to curl if you don't border it off with a different, non-curling stitch pattern. The button hole is terrible too. The end result just wasn't great, but messing up is part of the process.

The months keep passing by and knitting is still something that's constantly in my head. At some point I bought some purple yarn for future use, and I ended up using it on a pair of purple gloves, this time with fingers! I faced some difficulties with the shaping and with the finishing touches, so the structure of these gloves isn't all that great. But hey, fingered gloves! Awesome!!!!!

Thus far, I've made wristbands, a scarf, and even some gloves, so how about making a hat? I wanted to experiment with stitch patterns by now, so I thought of making a striped hat with a squares pattern. It ended up looking pretty cool.

So what happened to the old glove? Well, it started beckoning from the dark corner of the closet that it was banished to. I picked it up, decided to make it into a fingerless glove, and once finished, it began longing for its matching twin sibling. It was born about a month later. At this point in time, I'd been a knitter for 1 year.

It was with this pair of gloves that I felt I was truly beginning to understand knitting and how to customize patterns to my liking. I added an ornamental separation between the wrist portion and the main body of the glove, and a nice ribbing pattern around the knuckles. These quickly became my favorites.

Alas, they eventually became rejects once again, when I started knitting with cotton yarn instead of acrylic yarn. These gloves could never catch a break.

My next project was a water bag cover. I was still kinda slow at knitting, but I was improving with each new project. The mistakes I made while making the red candy bag gave me the foundation to start making this project. This one was made in 3 pieces, which were then sewn together. I finished it by sewing some nice buttons into it. The button holes are a bit tight, but much better than the mess I made with the candy bag.

By now, I'd made and finished a single project with cotton yarn, the blue wristbands seen above. I took a liking to cotton and decided to stay away from acrylic yarn as much as possible. Cotton is lighter, feels very fresh, and highlights the different stitch patterns in your project (and by extension, your mistakes), but it's harder to knit with and results in a fabric that's not quite as flexible as other materials.

I thought it'd be a great idea to make gloves with cotton. At this point in time, I considered myself an avid glove maker, so what better way to show that than making my fifth pair? Or rather, my fourth-pointh-fiveth pair since I never made the matching glove for that little grey and orange guy up there. It's kinda sad, but our interests shift over time so this stuff tends to happen.

I knitted these gloves at work. It makes me mad to reminisce about this, not because the experience was bad, but because they disallowed me from knitting at work while I was doing other tasks, or even during downtime. Truly a shame, since knitting actually helped me focus on my job much better, and it was a great conversation starter.

So before they started making a big deal out of this, I managed to start a scarf and a hat, with the scarf being finished in exactly a month and the hat in exactly a week. Incredible. That was my final experience knitting at work. Shit sucks but oh well.

These projects attracted a lot of positive comments from people. I remember that while I was knitting the scarf, I sat next to a woman in the bus after work, who seemed interested in what I was making. That sparked a nice conversation. We found out we were following a similar route back home but I'd have to get off sooner. She wasn't quite familiar with the layout of the city, and it just so happened that there was an incident in the metro that day and we all had to get out and walk to the next station, so I served as her guide of sorts. I feel like moments like these are hard to come by in other ways, so I really appreciate how knitting can bring people together.

I got other comments here and there from all sorts of people. Mostly positive, but especially mentioning how it all looks like it was made by a machine. I guess that speaks really well about my skills.

I didn't make any more projects during 2023, after finishing the red hat in January. I kinda lost interest in knitting for a variety of reasons, but the prohibition from knitting at work was a major factor.

Fast-forward to 1 year later, I happened to make a scrunchie and a pink hat in cotton yarn. I believe I did break the rules, because I'm a rebel and I love stirring up trouble!!! I did get a verbal warning for it, but no big deal.

And well, save for some uninteresting, miscellaneous things here and there, that's all I have to show for my own knitting. It's been a journey, and it's a skill that I hope I never forget. There's something about knitting that's just so relaxing. Sure, making row after row is kind of a grind, but do you really need to view it as such? It's fun seeing how a project comes to life, little by little, stitch by stitch, and eventually becomes a useful item that could last you for a lifetime.

Oh yeah, remember the legendary pair of gloves? The cool ones in that variegated blue pattern. I mentioned they ended up in limbo once again.

During the census of 2024, the lady that came to my home happened to have cold hands that day. I remembered about the unused pair of fingerless gloves that I'd made, and without thinking twice, I decided that I'd found a new home for them. I gave them to the census lady, who was definitely impressed about the quality of them. I told her I made them and she could keep them. I don't mind parting with items that I no longer use, and I hope they're now at a better home. Farewell, legendary blue gloves.

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To close off this rather lengthy article, I'd like to show you the project that made me want to learn how to knit:

I wore this sweater all the time until a couple years ago, when I decided that it was too worn out to keep using. I don't wanna destroy it through excessive use or otherwise, and I'd like to keep it forever, as a way of remembering one of the many talents that my mom had. This sweater had a lot of love poured into it and took very long to make, but the moment it was finally finished was thrilling for the two of us. I remember when she asked me to pick the color combo I wanted. I thought purple with details in orange would look awesome, though I wasn't aware of the challenge of knitting with two very different types of yarn. The orange one is this kind of yarn that alternates between chunky and thin. But hey, it gives the sweater a unique look.

Arthritis took a huge toll on my mom's ability to create things, but she managed to make one last knitted item:

In 2021, I bought my mom the same yarn that I used for the variegated blue gloves. Obviously I asked her first. She made this cool bandanna in a relatively short time and wore it until nearly the end. I don't know what the stitch pattern is called but it looks easy to make, and it looks great. It's quite comfortable as a cowl.

I don't really wear this, but I'm also keeping it as an heirloom of sorts. I think it's inspiring how she created this in spite of her numerous health issues. Even though I'd like to forget all the suffering, I think it's the pillar around which not only my mom, but people everywhere forge their resilience. Despite the adversity, we just find ways to keep doing the things we enjoy.

May she rest in peace.