Knit, knit, knit.

Last year, my goal was to learn to knit. And yesterday, (January, when this post was originally written) I just finished knitting my first real project, a tiny sweater for tiny humans. I wanted to learn to knit for the same reason I started gardening: 

Making something out of nothing is pretty damn awesome. And making a useful something out of nothing is even awesomer (totally a word).

Knitting is fun. I watched a lot of Youtube videos until the technique made sense to me. I watched more Youtube videos to learn all the little tricks and different stitches. Then I knit. The first thing I made was a baby blanket for friends who were pregnant but didn't know what they were having SPOILER ALERT: they had a baby! A very cute, very sparkly baby! Pretty sure she actually poops unicorns! Here's her blanket:

Oooh, pretty bound off edges

Then other people I knew were having a girl so I made the prettiest, stripiest blanket I could muster:

PS: they also had a cute baby! Weird how that keeps happening. Anyway, I was pretty happy with that but knew I had to step it up and challenge myself. So I made stockings/fingerless gloves/ tea cozies! 

Sorry, sorry, this is my cat. Where were we? Knitting.

I love how tea cozies make tea pots look jaunty

Buttons!! I can attach buttons to things now!

Wait, how did Charlie Hunnam get here? That's weird.

Those projects above were knit while watching 5 seasons of The Good Wife, 2 seasons of Orange is The New Black, 2 seasons of Downton Abbey, and 4 Elijah specific episodes of The Vampire Diaries. It's productive time wasting! Knitting is a great way to pass the time. When mom was in the hospital last year, (she's fine. Mom in the hospital deserves it's own blog. Only mom can make a hospital stay hilarious) I said goodbye to her as at 7:30 in the morning as they wheeled her in for a 7 HOUR SURGERY, not knowing if I was gonna see her again. Pretty heavy stuff. I had a whole day to wonder and worry in Vancouver General but I also had sisters en route for backup. While I waited for the cavalry to arrive, I went for a walk to Granville Island and spoke to some baby ducklings who were very supportive. Then I went back to the hospital to nap. Then I drank 7,000 coffees and tried to distract myself with hot doctors.

And I knit.

I was using knitting as a rosary while I waited. I think I ended up knitting a very ill fitting hat. When mom was finally out of surgery and asking for Coronation Street I knew she'd be fine and I could finally breathe again.

Knitting isn't supposed to be stressful, but I'm hard on myself so when I've screwed up and slipped a stitch and have to start over I look like this:

It's all very dramatic. I blame the pattern directions. And the fact that I'm not very good at reading them. But it's mostly the directions fault and the fact that you're working from the bottom with nothing to the top with something (I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere).

At one point with the tiny sweater, I got so frustrated with it I swore at it and stormed out. "This is what couples fights must be like," I thought.

So here's the tiny sweater. It's not perfect, but much like when you look at yourself in the mirror: only you notice any flaws; you look perfect to everyone else. 

The bottom sweater was my prototype borrowed from a friend

And, as much as I'd like to, I will not be knitting my own dog/cat/boyfriend.