Hi Everyone!

[Nite Owl]

Been waiting all week for this board to start and tonight I pick to sit and watch a movie (and knit!)

Looking forward to learning from everyone here. DU is so amazing with all the talent and ideas I know this board will be great.

Oh, I knit. Not very well but it's cheaper than going to a doc. It's like yoga for the fingers, my mind goes free. I have arthritis in my hands and it helps that too. Started knitting almost a year ago. I love wool!

I also make jewelry and do some pastels and oils (but not for a long time).

[Longhorn]

1. I never thought of needlework being good for arthritis.

That's good to know! "Yoga for the fingers." I love it! :)

[Greybnk48]

2. Hi Nite owl!

Lots of knitters here. Knitting has helped with my arthitis too. I've been knitting two years every day and have noticed a dramatic improvement. I only notice it now when they ache from the cold (if I forget my mittens).

Yoga for the hands is great. I also started after the 2004 election rather than see a shrink. Knitting has psychiatric bennies too!!

I'm just finishing a second sock for my husband. It's the Thuja pattern from Knitty.com. Knit in a DK on #6 needles so very quick. They have a seed stitch rib cuff that goes to the toe. I really like these for a man's sock.

Later :hi:

[Nite Owl]

3. I haven't gotten up the courage to

start socks! They look so hard. Getting pretty good at hats/caps though.

I did my first cables, it looks harder than it is surprisingly. Looking for a good sweater pattern. I found one but not in the yarn I want to use. I got Ann Budd's book on designing your own but not sure if I should do that for a first.

A friend and I started last March. Went to a knitting meeting at the library and they showed us how to do the knit. From there I was on my own, learning online and from books. I can't stop, it keeps me sort of sane. Why do men gasp when they open a cabinet and find it filled with yarn? I'm not getting that part. They got power tools all over the place and yet a few cabinets of yarn sets them agast. This topic might need it's very own thread....

[photogirl12]

4. Ummm...yeah

Try looking at their expression when they enter your yarn/craft room. There is a huge gasp and then total and complete silence.

[Nite Owl]

6. The look is mysteriously the same

what is it that does this to guys? The silence, speechless. It's almost the universal response. Women don't do that when we see the newest power tool, I think we are quite vocal as they trip over their tongues explaining just how it will really pay for itself, really it will.

[photogirl12]

8. I have a tendency to do that look

when I see a new power tool. Of course, my boyfriend does buy expensive toys!!

[Tansy_Gold]

9. I have both power tools and fabric/yarn stash

BF has his tools, but I have MORE and I have BIGGER ONES.

He never complains about my tools (including bandsaw, tablesaw, lathe) and how much space they take in the workshop, but he can't wrap his pointed little head around the absolute need of a quilter to have lots and lots and lots of different fabrics. He seems to think everything should be used up in one project, the leftovers tossed away, and start from scratch on the next one.

Of course, he also doesn't understand that the same concept applies to wood. You just don't throw away the leftovers or toss them on the campfire. . . . I've made some fine things from scrap wood.


TG

[Greybnk48]

5. Mittens led me to socks

I started knitting mittens with some really amusing results. I have a collection of 5 or six mittens that my daughters occasionally have me haul out so we can all have a good laugh. You know the kind--the "elongated alien mitten", the "stunted thumb." etc. The ladies at my yarn shop pushed me to try socks because they said if you can mittens, you can do socks, and if you can do socks, you can do almost anything because you learn several important techniques. I couldn't take the sock class at the Knit Shop because it was always scheduled the same night as a night class I teach. But I gave it a shot after I found Amy Finlay's website knittinghelp.com where she walks you through knitting almost the entire sock (the northwoods baby sock). So I parked in front of the computer and did a baby sock with her. I also learned grafting or Kitchener stitch this way when I finished the toes.

So I'm not totally nutty about socks per se. I have a fondness for them because I learned so much from the effort AND they are very quick (unless you do the ones on #0 or #1 needles).

Ah the yarn stash thing!! Well, I didn't do this deliberately (I don't think), but I only have purchased acrylic or acrylic blends in the presence of my husband, so he thinks yarn is pretty cheap. I also have it organized by fiber and weight in different containers in a spare room so it's hard to tell just how much I have. My daughters laugh when they go in there, and my son-in-law did the gasping thing, but my husband is somewhat clueless--thank goodness.

I have a raglan pattern that works for any size and I think any yarn--I'll look for it. I think this is the easiest, but I hate putting garments together. My girlfriend did a sweater class over at the yarn shop and when she finished the neck did not fit over her grandson's head. I think that's the trouble spot for many of us. I knit about 4 or 5 baby sweaters with cheap yarn just to get the hang of it before I tried a "real" one. I'll post that pattern when I find it.

[Nite Owl]

7. Of course mittens!

That I think I will try, small but not too small, I think I might be able to do that. I'll have start a search for the right pattern. I like the ones that sort of have the finger part separate so it flips back for driving. Gotta go look.

I have some pretty blue and green acrylic that I don't know why I bought maybe I'll make some baby stuff from that. Sooner or later someone is bound to have a boy and I'll be ready! Good idea and I'll be using up that yarn too.

[WolverineDG]

10. I'm threatening my cousin's kid

with the infamous, dreaded "three-armed sweater" for Christmas. :evilgrin: If I really feel evil, I'll knit it in bubblegum pink.

dg

[Morgana LaFey]

11. "a few cabinets of yarn"

LOL. Yeah, at least.

Listen -- here's my main tip about socks, which are NOT that difficult (honest): get a good pattern, one that makes sense to YOU. That's the whole thing right there.

The first pair I knit I ended up going back and forth between about 5 different patterns/sets of instructions.

You probably have some good online resources (videos and such?)? If not, let me know. I'm sure I have a gazillion links.

I'm about to start another pair of socks, this time for DH, and I'm going to see if Sally Melville's pattern in the Purl book is my ONE basic pattern I'm looking for.

Once you get the process down, it's easy to go from there, and knit basically without a pattern. Or so they say. That's what I'm aiming for -- or to add my own lace or cable or cabled lace pattern.

[Nite Owl]

12. Ok, ok so it's a little

more than a few! lol And I didn't count the front closet or the baskets or the bags and no one even knows about the basement.

I'll start looking for a pattern, I know I have books with patterns for socks but I passed over them.

So many things to knit, so little time!

[Morgana LaFey]

13. Now you've REALLY got me rolling on the floor

and no one even knows about the basement

Not that you're alone: I actually have more yarn that a new little (emphasis on little) yarn shop that opened about a year and a half ago. Or she has more now, but I'm SURE I had more than she opened with.