A bit o' history

Since I did promise this would be the topic of my next post...

As I remember it, my first experience with any form of needlework was when I was in kindergarten or maybe first grade. My mom sketched out a cross-stitch pattern of my name for me to follow. I believe my brother, a year younger, did his name as well (on a separate piece of fabric).

I continued to do at least some cross-stitch until shortly before my first daughter was born; I have since discovered that for me at least, cross-stitch does not blend as easily with having young children as various other types of needlework.

I learned to hand sewing sometime in elementary school, machine sewing in junior high school. (I vividly remember being annoyed that by the time I got truly good at making doll clothes, I was too old to play with them.)

My aunt tried to teach me to crochet when I was in my tween or very early teen years, but I ended up teaching myself when I was sixteen (from a "Learn to Crochet" article that I still have, somewhere). I actually crocheted a fair amount in high school, during class — it helped me focus, and I was fortunate enough to have teachers who didn't mind as long as my grades stayed good.

I made my first attempt at knitting sometime in late high school, a dolman sleeved sweater to be made from a pink/gray variegated acrylic yarn — what can I say, it was the 80s. I got several inches done before deciding that I would stick with crochet.

I pieced my first blanket top, a log cabin pattern, from material I had tie dyed myself during the summer before I went away to college. I didn't return to piecework and quilting until the spring of 2004, when I made a baby quilt of my own design for a friend (at left). I've since make one other baby quilt, when I took a class on paper piecing in 2007. Both of these can be seen in my Picasa Web Album:

Quilting

In the fall of 2006 I decided to give knitting another try and took a class. Fortunately for me, the instructor looked at how I was holding the needles and said, "Oh, you'd do better with Continental knitting than American..." She was right, it suits how I already hold yarn from years and years of crocheting, and I've been happily knitting every since.

And what that doesn't cover, no one needs to know! (It's questionable whether anyone besides me needs to know this muc. *grin*)