My Aunt taught me to knit a few years ago and it's one of my favorite hobbies. I'm not all that great with it, but I still love to do it when time permits. It seems like all the women in my family have some kind of fabric or needlework hobby. I don't remember my grandmother ever sitting down without some kind of knitting, needlepoint, etc work in her hands. For me knitting is like therapy. It feels so good to create something from a ball of yarn and be able to use it or give it to someone special. When we lived in New York, I knitted hats and socks for all the new babies in my husband's unit. Now that we live in TX and don't have very severe winters, I've been knitting things that are a little more fun, like sweaters for my dogs and dishcloths for myself. Nothing feels better than finishing a project and deciding what to make next! Some great places to find free patterns are Lion Brand Yarn and About.
The thing I like best about the actual process of knitting is that there are only two basic stitches, knit and purl. My Mom tried to teach me to crochet, but there's just too much to remember for me and I was never very good at it. About the only thing I could make was a single crochet blanket. With knitting, all other stitches are some kind of variation on the knit or purl stitch.
The knit stitch looks like little V's and is the "right" side of your work. I prefer the smoother look of knit over crochet. The knit stitch is formed by inserting the right needle into a loop on the left needle from left to right, wrapping the working end of the yarn around the right needle and sliding the stitch on the left needle over it. When you knit both sides of your work instead of purling the "wrong" side, it's called garter stitch. When you purl the wrong or back side and knit the right side, it's called stockinette stitch. Garter stitch looks bumpier, but is identical on both the front and back of your work.
The purl stitch looks like little bumps going horizontally across your work and is considered the "wrong" side. Purl stitches are formed by inserting the right needle into a stitch on the left needle from right to left, wrapping the working end of the yarn around the right needle and droppimg the stitch from the left needle onto the right.
