My First Project: Casting on 100

“My mom says you can’t do that!” My next door neighbor and best friend at the time sneered. Her competitive jab was in response was to my excitement over learning how to knit. Her mother had accepted my plea to learn to knit at the young age of 8. She had me cast on 20 stitches (why do I rememeber that?) in orange acrylic of a certain widely-known brand sold in box craft stores. I worked back and forth in garter stitch, picking up spare stitches and dropping some until my yarn ran out. There were 37 total stitches making my piece a trapezoid not long enough to be a scarf. I decided to seam it on two sides and make a pencil case. I then decorated it with glittery puff paint because…well it was the 90s. I became so excited I told my now-jealous friend that I was going to cast on 100 stitches with more acrylic white yarn (of the same brand). Her response made me want to do it more than before. So I took the US Size blue aluminum straight needles and did it…probably to spite her.

We weren’t friends long after that. But my knitting was….

The orange pencil case in progress

The orange pencil case in progress



My obsession blossomed and I found a pattern for a Fisherman sweater on the inside tag of another yarn (this time 100% wool). I dove into that sweater as a young child, with the “My Mom Says You Can’t Do That” spite, and knit the sweater of my dreams. Ames Department Store was big in Upstate New York at that time and supplied me with all I needed to make the garment. When it came time to knit the sleeves, I didn’t trust the instructions, so I kept knitting. They looked too small. Little did I know that a drop sleeve adds much-needed length. Also, when it came time to bind off the neckline, I think I crocheted it? It definitely doesn’t resemble anything of a cast off I have seen. Live and learn I guess.

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That sweater made me want to know EVERYTHING about knitting. So I pushed on, learning new techniques. When my family finally got a computer with the internet, all of my time was spent researching tips and tricks that I couldn’t find in my growing collection of knitting books and patterns. The knitting bug had bitten (which is famously different than the crochet bug that I didn’t catch for too long).

Neck bind off?

Neck bind off?

So for all new knitters or ones who want to learn here is my advice: don’t listen to the ones who tell you not to cast on 100 stitches. Follow your passion. And if you don’t get the Knitting Bug (or Crochet Bug) know that trying was enough. But try again and if then, you dont want to do it, well….knitters and crocheters always need people to make things for!

With all the knitting spite you need until next time,

timtastic