My Grandma James sewed, knit, and did other hand work. My mom taught me how to use a sewing machine and makes quilts and does beautiful embroidery. I have tried my hand at a wide variety of crafts over the years and still do a wide variety of things. I enjoy having projects I can take with me to fill time at appointments and when I am traveling. Knitting fills that wonderfully, and I enjoy it even more knowing I am using my grandma’s tools.

A pair of knitting needles with purple yarn.
My current scarf.

Grandma James had an amazing collection of tools and I wasn’t even sure what they were for when I first got them. I had done some crochet, but no knitting.

Knitting needles sized 2 to 17, an assortment of hooks and needles for knitting in the round (like socks), and circular needles.

This amazing kit lets you select the size of the needles, the length of the needles, and whether they are “straight” or circular. I haven’t used it much, but I find it very cool. There were larger versions, with a third section. Later versions didn’t have the molded case but had elastic to hold the pieces in place.

An image of a knitting kit, with several sizes of needles.
A Boye kit, commonly called “Needlemaster.” There were several companies that sold it, often branded to specific stores, such as Sears.
An image of a knitted dish cloth. It is not very square.

I took a couple of classes, but it took a while for it to click. I am still not very good at it, and haven’t tried anything too fancy – no cable knit sweaters for me. At first I made simple washcloths to get the feel of the process. My early ones aren’t very square.

Scarves, scarves, scarves

Mostly, I have been making scarves. When my director at work retired, she gifted my several skeins of yarn, so I have been playing with different stitch combinations. I figure when I get done, I will take them to work and let each of my co-workers pick one.

Three knitted scarves, in blue, multicolor pinks and purples, and gold.
The blue one has stripes, but it doesn’t show well in the picture. It was the first one I made. The multi-colored on is a seed stitch and the gold one is appropriately enough called a waffle stitch.