My delirious jump into the world of knitting.

I have a friend whom I call Granny Tan. She is a few years younger than me but she knits like a little old soul. She is totally addicted. I thought she was nuts.. I mean what do you do with those 2 needles? I had tried knitting as a child. Garter stitchon white wool for a scarf. Do you know that kids don't tend to have clean hands? My scarf quickly ended up with a sort of brownish strip through it. *sigh* I would not be carrying on the proud family knitting tradition.

Over the years I have learned to cross stitch quite well, even taking a friends wedding invitation and converting it by myself, to a cross stitch work. I have learned to sew and for a while, made many clothing and gift items. I like to paint pottery and ceramics. I also make wreaths, table centerpieces, ornaments, etc. I'm pretty crafty. So this Christmas, for the first time in roughly 15 years, I had the time and energy to make most of my gifts homemade. So I set out to make jewelry and paint ceramics for most of my gift recipients. The women on my list were no problem, but what about the men? What would be quick, cost effecient and useful to men? Then I though of Granny Tan. I had already commissioned her to create some felted purses for some of the ladies on my Christmas List. She does amazing work. Here's a pic of the mohair shawl she gave me for my birthday and the felted market bag she did for me for no particular reason.

So I thought " how about making scarves for the men for Christmas?". Granny Tan and I were scheduled to go on a road trip later that month so I could pick her brain for 4 days straight if I needed to. So I told Tan my plan and she gave me my one and only lesson that week. I started with the cotton dishcloth pattern. Super easy and because it's so quick you get instant gratification. Nothing like a little positive reinforcement to keep you knitting! I moved on to scarves pretty quickly since I was on a time crunch. I don't have a single picture of any of the scarves I knit because I quickly sent them away. But I'm going to start snapping pics now! So stay tuned, because there is always something on the needles around here.

Oh and those purses I had commissioned Tan to do for me... I ended up finishing them up myself. And they turned out great. I do have pictures of one I did for my niece. I'm going to do one for myself in the reverse colours.