Knitting Needles and Stomach Viruses

Inspired by Tooz' craftiness when she came to visit, I went to Wally World and bought one of those "teach yourself to knit" kits that comes with two sets of knitting needles, an instruction book, and some tools for knitting that I have no clue what they're for yet. Anyhoo, I decided I wanted to learn to knit. I struggled for several days to figure out what the heck the instructions meant (those illustrations look NOTHING like what the yarn in my hands was actually doing), and finally had success! Yay! I then looked over and noticed that Jamie had calmly taken over the second set of knitting needles and taught himself how to cast on, and is in the process of teaching himself how to add rows. So we now have an activity we do together. Which is good, because for the past two days, we've been home together, hibernating and shivering our way through fevers and a stomach virus while the rest of the world is at work and/or school. We sleep for a while, get some fresh OJ and some soup, knit for a little while, go back to sleep for a while, take stomach medicine and fever reducer, then start the cycle over again with a nap. I'm happy to report that we are both now sufficiently recovered to go to work and school tomorrow. Knitting together has been nice, and (although neither of us will win any prizes for what we've started making) plan to keep at it. It's nice to look down at something and be able to say, "Hey, I made this with my very own hands!" It's also been a great confidence booster to Jamie that he was able to figure out quite easily something Mommy had to struggle with!

2/5/09 Update:

As I was leaving for work this morning, I realized I've only just begun to knit (and haven't even started doing it well yet), but I have already started falling prey to a knitting vice. I've already got the beginnings of a stash of yarn. I'm still learning to knit, have no completed projects and no way of completing anything (since I still don't know how to do anything other than a knit stitch and have yet to figure out how to bind off a row), yet I already have two partial skeins left over from Tooz's visit, two small skeins of cotton in a pretty green and white variation (got on sale for $1 each!), a full skein of a deep teal yarn made from recycled soda bottles, two skeins of a nice chunky yarn in a rich brown variegation, and Jamie insisted on his own skein of a bright bright BRIGHT red. Oh well, at least this gives me lots of options of what yarn I want to mess up by continuously knitting and frogging it!