My first knitting project (flashback)

Interweave is currently having a contest (hurry on over – it ends at 11:59 pm Eastern time tonight!) where they want you to describe your first knitting project.  Knitting?  Contest?  Blogging about it?  I have to enter!

These pillows were my first official knitting project.

I talked about them briefly in my Crafting Black Hole post last year, but let me give you a few more details.  You see, up to the point where I started making these, the only knitting I had done was a single washcloth.

Very uneven stitches!  There might even be a hole in there somewhere.  I should have done some more washcloths for practice, but I found that boring.  Much like when I learned to crochet – I made one washcloth and then made a really long washcloth – turned scarf – turned afghan by doing color changes.

I thought these pillows would make a great wedding present for my sister and brother-in-law. The process was slow-going as I was still learning to knit and purl and how to smoothly switch between the two.  There was also a moderately complex pattern that I needed to follow to get the design into the finished piece.  I recall starting over from scratch a couple of times and learning to tink (knit backward / undo stitches) when my counts were off.

October came too fast and I didn’t get them finished in time for the wedding.  Soon I missed my 2010 Christmas deadline.  Hey, what can I say?!  I was giving birth that December.

While I was busy at home, I discovered when I returned to work that knitting and crochet projects were great to work on while pumping in our little “cot room”.  These pillows were a project that didn’t require a lot of room for transport – unlike an afghan would.  It was a great time to work on them and I accomplished a lot during those few months (do you think we could implement some type of nationwide fiber break at our workplaces?)   I found that by the time I was finished, I was becoming rather proficient in my knitting skills!

Oddly enough, these were not the first knitting project I finished.  That ended up being a lace scarf for my sister-in-law which I discussed earlier today.  I finished that in December 2011. Technically the pillows weren’t finished until the following January (2012).  But I count these as my first real project.  They were first to be started and really only were put aside temporarily because my SIL’s birthday was in December.

Pattern: Summer Cotton Pillow Set. There are four patterns in this set. I used patterns #1 and #4.
Designer: Edie Eckman
Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice
Colorway: Honey (130) and Chocolate (126)
My Rav project pages – Pillow #1 and Pillow #4