Hi!
Thanks, Woodi!
I learned knitting when I was 4. I did a lot and yarn ran through my hands like mad. I also did crochet, make bracelets and all that.
Then I went to knitting socks, then to gloves.
Then I did not knit much for years, since: how many socks can you make? How many gloves can you give away… a good bit… but then that stops.
Then some babies came around, last my niece (who lives in the US).
So I picked up knitting again, gained speed, a lot of knowledge and finally dared to overcome my sleeve trauma.
That is a special issue with me: in 5th grade we knit a pullover in school. I did a beautiful backside. I started the front, used different patterns on it (thinking they would match) and finished that. I was one of the quickest and best knitters in my class and things came out well. Then I started a sleeve. Never even finished the first one right and was bored with the project (also not wild about the cut…).
Well, it was all the fault of the ugly blue and yellow yarn, it did not look good, it did not feel good.
I started over shortly after that. Made another pullover all by myself (same cut, I did not have another pattern). It suffered the same fate.
That was the last I made for pullovers or outfits, ever.
Then baby pullovers… well, fast, small, that was ok.
And then a LOT of baby-outfits this winter.
That got me thinking that it is hypocritic to use 600 g of yarn on 3 baby pullovers, but think that a single pullover for myself would be too big a project.
So I made the violet pullover with the shell pattern in the bottom part. Then I made many more, as you see.
The knitting output here is since Jan. 1st this year. And I not have pics of all of them. The pullovers for myself and most the stuffed animals I started middle of April 2010.
My stress is usually riding high, since I am a lawyer and work long days between a 12 hour minimum and a 16 hour-thing multiple times a week if I am unlucky. I never quite know how days go, but usually I am relatively wound up or beaten down at the end of the day.
Knitting really gets me to unwind, be productive, be repetative, until I fall asleep. It makes me happy and relaxes.
OK, it is also adictive. But it is easier than the sewing I used to do for like 2 years before, since that bans me to a room that drowns in scraps and fuzzies and I do not see my husband all night. Knitting I can do on the couch while watching TV (I hate to ONLY watch TV. That bores me a lot and gets me drowsy, so I need to do stuff anyways) or I can take it places (on long train rides for example).
And the outcome is SO beautiful and practical and individual and so I just like it. And making little gifts or whole baskets full of outfits is really nice.
A good LYS helps to get on.
My patterns are mostly from German magazines (almost all pullovers), partially international magazines (the thai-top), from here, from Ravelry.com (as the bunny-duck) and Knitty.com (as the white lace jacket) and from drops (garnstudio.com) (the norwegian jacket that is yet unfinished)
