The first piece of the puzzle.

the saddest little scarf i ever did see.

A starting point is just that. With knitting, that starting point is fumbling with a pair of needles for a long period of time and winding up with a misshapen, hole-ridden hunk of fabric that not even a mother could love, much less wear.

This scarf took me two years to knit. Yes, seriously. You would think that it was an intricate piece with cables and intermediate stitches, but no – just plain garter stitch on plain needles.

Every once and awhile I would pick up my set of needles and Red Heart variegated yarn and do a row or two, but get frustrated at how the finished product was working out and throw it in a drawer or closet until I re-discovered it. My knitting was a joke to my friends, seeing as most of them knew that this scarf was years in the making.

I will keep this scarf forever, as an indication of how far I’ve come. Looking at it now, it’s far too short to wear and the fringe is laughable, but I keep it at the bottom of my finished project box anyway.

Once in a great while, I’ll pull it out, run my hands over the scratchy fabric, and smile. After that, it’s folded back up and put back with the other finished pieces. There’s a history to everything.

My knit-story.

Knitting was not something I ever saw myself getting into in a million years. I remember sitting in the car on long trips with my mother, or in the living room with her while I watched television, where she was always knitting a scarf for either my sister or me. For years, I watched her work her magic with those two needles and make me colorful scarves that may have curled at the edges, but were still mine. One afternoon when I was about twelve, I went into her craft box and got out a pair of knitting needles and some yarn, casting on a bunch of stitches and desperately trying to remember how she’d made the first one into an actual stitch. Frustrated, I’d give up, and it would continue on that way until just a few years ago. She would have taught me herself, but as a mother with a full-time job and an unruly teenager, it didn’t happen.

At nineteen, I decided to pick up my own set of size ten knitting needles and set out to knit myself a scarf. At Wal-Mart, I picked out a skein of Red Heart variegated yarn in a muted rainbow tone, and at twenty-two, I finished it. It became a running joke between my friends and I every fall and winter, with them questioning if I would ever finish the scarf, and if they’d ever see it. When I finally finished the scarf it was admittedly too short, but it didn’t stop serving its’ purpose – I taught myself to edge scarves with fringe using the too-short scarf.

From scarves to blankets and most recently dishcloths, I have found something that I really love to do in knitting. After that scarf and with the power of the Internet, I have been teaching myself many new knitting projects and stitches, and am always working on something or another, or looking into my yarn stash for a new idea. I’m going to use parts of this blog to chronicle my story as a knitter - among other things!

A little random positivity.

So, I originally posted this two months ago, but it has been stuck in draft hell since. Yes, I'm working on coming back. But until then - here goes!

For a couple of weeks, I'd been having an issue with a program I use at work to do one of my weekly duties. I e-mailed my contact who had no information, e-mailed the department that should have been able to help, and finally e-mailed the IT people in my department in the hopes I could get my issue solved. It had to do with a login and pings and other random nerdy verbiage that doesn't hold much weight in the real world. But IN ANY CASE.

One member of our IT department, Jason, went above and beyond to try and get my issue taken care of. Sure, I came back from breaks a few days with my computer completely restarted (and sometimes, multiple times a day), but since my issue was taken care of, it was all I cared about. So, since it had taken about a week, I just sent him an e-mail to thank him:

Hey, Jason:

Just in case I didn't get a chance to (I was pretty frazzled most of last week), thanks for going prettymuch above and beyond to make sure my problem got solved. Even if it did mean I came back from breaks to a restarted computer, it works great and without you, it probably never would have happened!

So thank you. Happy Monday!

I wasn't expecting a response (just wanted to send a simple thank you), but he sent me a response that actually made my day last Wednesday, and a few days after that as well!

Hi Liz,

I was out of the office Monday and Tuesday. I just read your e-mail-You are very welcome! Thank you so much for your appreciation.

More people should have your type of work attitude(and positive energy). Thank you  again for your kind words.

A positive attitude can go a long way.