Where Are They Now?

And day four (2KCBWDAY4) with this prompt:

Whatever happened to your __________?
Write about the fate of a past knitting project. Whether it be something that you crocheted or knitted for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to charity.

It took a little bit of digging because most of my winter wear has been put up (and to be truthful, I don't pull this out much even then) but I have found my very first finished object.

Not pictured: All the giggling I was doing because taking photos of myself feels so silly.

Blog friends, people shouldn't be allowed onto the internet as teenagers.  They just shouldn't.  Not to protect their delicate sensibilities, but to spare them the embarrassment of going back ten years later to find the blog post they wrote about learning to knit.

The post itself isn't too bad (though I seem to have had an interesting relationship with spelling and grammar, my god) but having to go through all of My Very Important Adolescent Feelings to find it was horrifying.  Like, kid, some day you'll have bills to pay, stop whining about your English teacher being useless.*

I tried to clean up the typos and some of the grammar, though I left the frenetic run-on sentences because I still haven't grown out of those.  Here's what my seventeen year old self had to say about learning to knit:

I feel like Penelope, only I'm knitting instead of weaving.

Let me explain. 

Sometime today I decided I should learn how to knit, so I went to Michael's bought some yarn and needles and a how-to book and all afternoon and evening I've been learning how to knit. So I practiced casting on, until about three hours ago when I decided that my edge was good enough to start actually knitting so, I started knitting (while listening to "My Evil Plans" *heart*) and of course I keep pulling the entire thing apart over and over again so I can continue practicing. And my hands hurt from me making them move like they're not used to moving.

But all this pain, frustration and infernal clicking later what do I have to show for it? A slightly frayed length of yarn and an empty pair of knitting needles. That's right, I've undone it all. So this is where Penelope comes in. I work all day and carefully undo it at night, so I have nothing to show for my labors.

*whacks head on table* Somebody just kill me now. I haven't even tried to learn how to purl yet.

Shortly after learning how to purl I made the above scarf.  I remember it was Caron on 5mm needles and I hadn't learned the magic of tinking yet, so that when I made a mistake I oh-so-cleverly pulled out the needle and frogged back until I was past it.  Then I carefully put the needle back in and kept on keeping on.

Unsurprisingly, it has some quirks:

I've helpfully labelled my cast on edge (where I was still clearly in the 'ooh, knitting is hard' stage) and a row of twisted stitches where I yanked out the needle to fix a mistake.  I don't actually remember it, but I think it's safe to assume I was feeling pretty good about having this knitting thing down only to catch a mistake, curse in every language I could think of and then chuck it across the room.

Here's something I didn't notice until months later and I know I should probably fix (especially as I do still wear this from time to time) but I leave it out of a goofy sense of nostalgia:

Well, that was a fun trip back in time.  If only there were more DeLoreans and less teenage angst.

*Obviously he was if I was seventeen and still confusing 'their' and 'they're.'  Even if it was informal, off the cuff, internet-y writing.