Tying Knots

So yesterday, I decided to teach myself how to knit.  One Sheepish Girl is partly to blame for this (her contribution to Artful Blogging was brilliant and utterly relatable).  Pinterest is responsible for the rest of it.  I got tired of seeing awesome needlework and being excited about it, only to discover that it's knit and not crochet.

Bugger.

So...I took myself down to Walmart and picked up a set of size 8 aluminum knitting needs and a skein of yarn I knew Nina would like (my first real crochet project was a scarf...might as well keep up the tradition).  I then found an awesome tutorial video over at Knitting Help (thanks again to One Sheepish Girl for suggesting online videos), and a few hours later, I could do a long-tail cast on like a pro.  Turning it into a second row took a little more time and a lot more patience (at one point, I said to hell with it and went back to the blanket I'm crocheting for Gavin), but I figured it out...finally.

Making progress on Nina's scarf.

Getting it to the third row...THAT took until this morning when I watched some more of the video.  I could not figure out why my first stitch either looked like crap or just unraveled on me.  God bless the instructor and her slip stitch.  I've now got six rows (little victories) and Nina is excited about having a scarf.  So excited in fact, that she asked if I would teach her how to knit.  So now she's making a hat on a loom (it's knitting...sort of).  I got her started with practice yarn to see if she likes what she's doing and so if it got COMPLETELY messed up, we wouldn't be out yarn.  She knows once she finishes the hat, she'll get AWESOME yarn.

Nina learning how to loom knit.  

Hooray for the sounds of happy silence.