I’m Jessemy, and my first project was a ballband warshrag in white cotton! That was such a perfect first project: lots of texture, the fun of counting to each slipped stitch, a useful item upon completion. All time favorite movie is The Apostle with Duvall. Pizza has been best food since 8 years old, and I really would like some patent oxfords thanks to Kay’s image of her view from a dentists chair. I’d like to learn intarsia and Fair Isle this winter! Right now, I have my first garment on the needles: Foxglove by Purl Soho in Rowan Felted Tweed Aran, Clay colorway.
A + sweater knit as one piece (casting off and casting on for the neck. My grandmother was teaching my cousin and I to knit one summer many years ago in a little country village in France. I had that sweater for years and have recently unsuccessfully tried to hunt down the pattern. I’m a total novice with grand aspirations.
Favorite movie? Any period piece featuring royalty.
Food? Indian.
Color? Purple…no, green…no, purple…wait, green…
Shoes? Comfy and sexy
Hi. I’m Beth.
I learned to knit from my grandmother. I think the first thing I knit was a red vest. I don’t remember if I ever finished it though.
My favorite color is blue. My favorite things to do are read and knit so give me books on CD and a project and I’m happy.
I’m married with 3 kids and am making afghans for gifts this year.
Wonderful! I won’t be able to resist buying the book!
Thanks for the link.
Martha here. I live in Long Beach, New York,on the Atlantic Ocean. First thing I ever finished knitting was a sweater in college in 1977 ish. My neighbor Cora helped me with it. It was purple and textured with a henley tab opening. It was way beyond my skill level but I had that extra long armed sweater for forty years, thinking when I had the time and skills that I would fix it. Finally tossed it a couple of years ago when it became clear that if I lived to be two hundred I would never run out of yarn. I started knitting for real later on.
My favorite shoes are Birkenstocks but I have a pair of fluvogs that I have worn exactly once but can’t bear to part with.
My. Name is Di short for Diane. First thing knitted was some pink fuzzy yarn with green metal needles as a swatch. I gave up as it had holes and drops and no one to tell me how to fix. Years before You Tube!
I love quick knits but slowly starting to go smaller as big and bulky is also hot and sweaty.
Rarely can see a movie more than once and favorite food is ice cream-with all the chunks and stuff mixed in.
Would like to look at an advanced pattern and say, Yeah I can to that, rather than turning the page.
It was the best thing I’ve ever done, I got my current job because that gave me an edge
I’ve found synesthesia to be both a gift and a curse - a gift because I can layer meanings in my work, a curse because there aren’t many who understand or who take the time to ask.
I love birkenstocks too!! So comfy
Thanks for the link. I want Doris Day’s project bag!
Hi, I’m Florida. I knit a half a scarf in high school when my mother taught me to knit. It was just a rectangle of stockinette, and it rolled into a tube. I didn’t like it and put my needles down. My first completed project, decades later, was a small purse with a button. I wanted to make a gift for a friend with cancer, and I got hooked on knitting. I was obsessed there for a little while.
My favorite food is artichokes. Anything with artichokes and I will order it off a menu.
I would like to learn how to make fresh pasta someday, but it intimidates me. I’m afraid it will be gummy, and I don’t have anywhere to keep one of those rollers in my kitchen.
Hi, Florida!
It’s funny that you like artichokes - I like them too! Especially artichoke hearts on pizza… or steamed with horseradish mustard… yum!!
If you do end up making homemade pasta, remember you only need to cook it for like 3 minutes - I’ve made the mistake of boiling mine for as long as it says on a box (of DRIED pasta) and regretted it!
Hi all! I’m Marilyn and long-winded. I apologize now because it is beyond my control.
I don’t remember learning to knit, I think I was four. I made a seed stitch scarf. In first grade I crocheted ponchos with a neighbor to help her get through her Xmas list. That was the last time I crochetedin HS I knit 3 sweaters, one of which I still have and wear, altho ugh it’s no longer a “big” cardi.
Picked up the stir again in 2002, thanks to a debilitating and chronic illness. Began with baby sweaters and learning lace. The knitting and the online knitting community are responsible for whatever sanity I was able to hold on to.
I expected I’d be a master knitter by now and also own a spinning wheel. Neither have come to pass. In a sense I’ve moved in reverse, I now love garter as much as Kay although my knitting cannot hold a candle to hers, and I find myself knitting shawlettes and shawls, many with lace but increasingly with stripes, 'cuz knitting is spose to be fun. And I no longer needed a pattern to fill my brain so that my distressing health situation could be forgotten while I knit.
Perhaps then it’s not surprising that a,though I’ve been unable to knit recently, I feel like it may be time for me to tackle a hard-for-me project so I can forget the insanity of these dark days of our body politic, and feelings it evokes in this erstwhile DC policy wonk.
I’m thinking of The Knitter’s Dude cardi, which is THE sweater from The Big Lebowski & what better combo is there than knitting and the Coen brothers for lifting one’s spirits?
As warned, I’m long winded. And I apologize. And believe it or not, this is the short version.
One last thing. I ️ MDK and think this site as a whole and the lounge are really great. Good timing Ann and Kay! Thanks!
Hello! I’m Valerie, but sometimes go by valerieclaires on the internet. I’ve been knitting since I was about 10, and the first thing I ever made were squares. You have to start somewhere, right?
I don’t have a favorite movie, but I love love love the West Wing, and it’s pretty cinematic. I could eat mashed potatoes with various types of chicken every single day if you let me, and I love ice cream. My favorite color is blue, which coordinates nicely with my favorite shoes, a pair of Navy Blue Keds just like Mr. Rogers’.
I want to get better at weaving. I made pot holders on a tiny loom when I was little, but got drawn back in last year when we got some nice weaving looms for work. We have a makerspace and a circulating tools collection (seriously, my library is the best), and there’s always something new to try. that’s how I learned to spin, too—we got some spinning wheels for our collection last year, and I checked one out a couple weeks at a time over the summer and learned to spin. I like trying anything crafty or kitchen-y or hands-on, so I’m always adding to the list of things I want to do.
I’m Maria and I’m edithgrove( a Stones homage) on Ravelry. I have no recollection of the first thing I knit but I do recall an early baby present for a new cousin when I was young that was combination of knitting and crochet; I have no idea what my inspiration/concept was. My grandmother taught me to knit; she was an accomplished crafter out of necessity.
A favorite movie is hard but I think I’d have to go with All About Eve. Or The Thin Man. And then there’s the Philadelphia Story. I could never pick a favorite food or cuisine; there is far too much goodness to choose. Blue and greens always seem to be favorite colors. I will confess that I have never quite gotten the shoe thing.
I stopped knitting for a number of years after projects that were all flat and square/rectangular. For some reason I picked it up again a few years ago, decided that I should branch out and knitted a cardigan. I begin things in the middle of the difficulty scale and then move onto harder and more complicated things; it’s my nature and there’s nothing to be done about it. Fortunately, I’ve become more patient with age and adopted the mantra, “There must be a way” to the annoyance of family and colleagues. I always have a few projects on needles and knit all the time. I worked in a school for a number of years and started a knitting club with high school students, who told me I was “hardcore” for knitting in the summer. I accept.
Valerie, have you discovered The West Wing Weekly podcast? Josh Malina and Rishi Hirway discuss an episode each week and it’s delightful. I’ve fallen woefully behind but am finding it great fun to rewatch such an enduringly excellent show.
Yay to Seattle WA LYS’s! Hope you have reason to come back. I’d be happy to knit over coffee and learn what color coffee is to you!
I have been listening, too! I am also behind, but it’s so good to revisit the West Wing and all the characters.
Hi, I’m Terri. I’m “holity” on Ravelry as well as here. Forgot to do this sooner!
I learned to knit as a preteen and I think my first project was a pair of slippers for myself, made with two colors of yarn held double–avocado and harvest gold. LOL I think you get a sense of when that would have been. But my mom was primarily a crocheter.
After my teen years, I didn’t knit or crochet for years. Then in 2008 my husband was in the hospital for 6 weeks after a huge surgery, and once he was down to just recovering I started getting stir crazy in his hospital room and thought, “I could be crocheting or knitting!” I bought Stitch & Bitch Crochet and some yarn and crocheted & felted a hat. But it wasn’t too long after that I started knitting too, and nowadays my ratio of knitting to crochet is about 50:1.
Pick a favorite movie? Are you kidding? Same goes for food.
I’m very curious about learning to knit with a knitting belt, Shetland-style.
Hopefully I can come back sometime, maybe next summer. I love seattle, and the arn shop was just delightful!
Excuse me as I make myself comfortable in a lounge chair with a gigantic cup of tea. My name is Jennifer, and I’m located in Dunn, NC. I’ve been crocheting since I was 16 when my great grandmother taught me how to Tunsian crochet. After that I got the bug, and couldn’t stop making things, mostly making acrylic goodies for craft and bake sales. For many years, I valiantly resisted the call of anything beyond red heart (it was cheap and in my teenage budget) as well as the dubious craft of knitting.
That changed when I was 23 or so, when I wandered into a Lys in Pennsylvania. I was confronted with a world of color, texture, and fibers. All it took was a clearance skeins of a wide variety of fibers (llama, bamboo, wool, and silk). From there an introduction to a knitting group who practically shoved knitting needles into my hands, and the lure of a single gorgeous pattern: Margaret from Mason Dixon; was all the temptation I needed to go over to the dark side. And I haven’t looked back!
Questionnaire:
1.) First knights object: a llama shrug I designed myself (no one told me this wasn’t a good idea)
2.) Favorite movie: Aresenic and Old Lace.
Food: Hmm…hard one but comfort food like chicken soup is definitely up there. Unless desserts count and then the answer is always cookie dough.
Color: teal and Orange
Shoes: boots
3.) I would love to learn brioche
I’m also on ravelry as spindlin