Knitting

Knitting not only relaxes me, it also brings a feeling of being at home- Magdalena Neuner

One thing many people not have realised is that I recently taught myself how to knit. I've wanted to know how to knit for a long time but it wasn't high up on my list of skills to learn, as I've always had other things to keep me busy, like cross-stitch. I spent years and years making various cross-stitch designs, however, I felt it was high time for me to try my hand to something new. In this case, learning to knit, which is something that has been rather challenging for me as I'm left-handed. Being a leftie means that I have to do everything mirrored, or in reverse, to what a right-handed person would do. So all the videos that I've discovered on YouTube have been rather difficult to follow as these tutorials have been aimed at the right-handed knitter. So it took quite some concentration as well as trial and error for me to figure out how to mirror the instructions. If anyone has any resources for the left-handed knitter, I'd greatly appreciate if you let me know.

Now that I've been able to figure out the mysteries of knitting, I've decided to put it to good use and try to make a quilt. The idea is to knit enough squares to then show them together and ta-da. I don't know how if it'll work but I'll figure out how to attach the squares at a later date. I'm having a lot of fun with this project and often when Andy and I end up watching our series in the evenings, I'll be multitasking. It's greatly relaxing being able to do something with my hands in the evenings. I'm the type of person who needs to keep my hands busy. If I'm not knitting I'm writing in my journal, though the only time I can think of when my hands aren't moving is when I'm reading, and even then I'm holding my beloved Kindle and turning the pages on there. Anyway, back to the knitting. I could write pages and pages about how soothing I find it. It's become a tonic to my soul and has helped to keep me sane these many weeks and months in lockdown.

Since I've only mastered one style of stitch, I've decided to make a quilt before learning any more types of stitch, given the difficulty of being my being left-handed (as mentioned earlier in this post). I borrowed a knitting book from the local library before they closed, to see if I can learn something new. I'll look through it once my quilt's pieces are all done, though I'll likely need to borrow or buy a sewing machine as I'm not brave enough to attempt to sow the pieces together by hand. I'm more likely to make a mess of things if I tried to do it by hand. In a way, I want to prove to myself that I can make a decent quilt from start to finish. Maybe one day I'll make a quilt like the two quilts that my sister, Hannah, and I had on our beds when we were growing up in Uganda that my mother made from the clothes my sister and I outgrew. This project is something that I'm actually really excited about. It's why I'm attempting to make the knitted quilt now. We'll see how it goes, and I'll hopefully post another update on how the process is going, in a few weeks time.