RIBBIT

I started knitting around October '04 and the first thing I ever made was a garter stitch scarf in something gray from A.C. Moore. It turned out well and from then on I was hooked. Next I did another garter stitch scarf in something fluffy from Red Heart. That turned out equally nice. After that I got the Stitch 'N' Bitch book and was amazed at all the different yarns and guages and textures and colors there were. I immediately wanted to do make the felted marsupial bag. It looked easy enough, didn't require purl stitches, and it was just SO cute. So I went to my lys and found some scratchy Lopi yarn in a light blue and a hot pink. I whipped that bag out in 2 days. And what's the next logical step after making 2 scarves and a bag using only knit stitch? That's right, a sweater. And was I going to mess around with some cheap acrylic from Michael's and cheap plastic needles? Hell no! I wanted Rowan! And bamboo needles! (If you haven't noticed, I tend to jump into things head first without thinking too much). So I began working on the Big Sack Sweater in Rowanspun Chunky. During that sweater I learned the long-tail cast on, how to purl, decrease, how to make lumpy bind-offs and how to messily seam. I think I was so excited to actually be finishing a sweater that I didn't really care about how the seams looked, just that they actually held it all together.
I'm actually wearing the sweater right now and, oof, every time I look at the seams it makes my heart skip a beat. The seams are crooked, fat, and uneven and the proportions of the sweater are SO wrong, but I won't frog any part of it because it shows how much I've grown as a knitter in the past year or so. And I love it.

Anyways, after I finished that sweater I couldn't be stopped. I bought all kinds of yarn (and not the cheap kind either) and patterns and started a crazy number of projects. All I wanted to do was start something new each week, while forgetting about the things I had started the weeks before. Eventually I had about 6 projects going at once, had been knitting like crazy, and had nothing to show for it. Then I just got tired of working on those and started some things that I really wanted to make. So those poor 6 projects sat in my closet for close to a year. Well last night I'd had enough of it. So I frogged them ALL. And now my yarn stash is huuuuuuge. And I feel sort of guilty for having bought all this yarn because I worry about whether I'll ever be able to use it or not. Right when I started knitting I think I was so desperate for a hobby that I just jumped full force into it without thinking much and now I have a ton of yarn that I bought then but never really used. Oh well, I better get to knitting!