For Love of Knitting

I love knitting! I can't help it. I haven't even been knitting that long, and it's already an obsession. I spend hours poring over knitting patterns, always thinking about what I'm going to make next and who I'll give it to. I've saved 22 gigabytes of patterns onto my Google Drive and have only just started to index them on Ravelry.

There's just one problem: I can't hold or manage knitting needles. It's not that I don't know how to hold them or knit with them. It's the first thing I taught myself to do! I spent day after day on Youtube learning the basics, practicing my knits and purls over and over until I got it all right. The problem is that holding the needles, yarn, and the movement it takes to knit is extremely painful. I can do it for a few minutes, then I'm done for a few days while the pain in my hands, wrists, and arms intensifies like a crescendo to the point that I'm unable to touch or lift anything for a time. The amount of time varies, of course, and is not in direct correlation to any in particular. This goes on throughout my entire body - pain e'rywhere, all day e'ryday - and is just my burden to bear, I guess.

So what does this mean for someone who just wants to knit pretty things? It means I need something easy to hold that isn't going to make my hands or fingers cramp; something I can set on a stack of pillows in my lap and work on at eye level so I don't hold my head down, which sends my neck muscles into a tizzy with horrible pain radiating up my skull and down my spine. It means loom knitting!

I've been having so much fun loom knitting, and I've made so many cool things with all my cool looms (pictures to be posted soon). The only downside is that there are way more needle knitting patterns than there are loom knitting patterns! And, let's face it, needle knitting FOs look so much nicer, softer, and prettier.

I decided I'm not going to limit myself to just loom knitting patterns. I have literally thousands of needle knitting patterns that I pore over, drool over, "ooh" and "aww" at, and covet. I envy those who can use the needles to knit up a beautiful sweater, cardigan, or even socks! Thus, my mission, which I do intend to document here, is to figure out how to make those beautiful needle knit patterns on my various looms. I'm looking at you, Vogue, Noro, and Drops Designs! I will share my successes and failures, with pictures and converted patterns for the successes.

I would like to add that my first attempt to convert a pattern, which was for a bowtie scarflet for my momma's birthday, was a success. Now I need to do it again so I can write down the steps. So, please stay tuned, because there is so much more coming to this blog!

~ Jessibee ~