Craft Night - Surprise!

Last night was our (mostly) weekly craft night.  Jamie, Linda, and (brand new member!) Bethany came over for a craft night surprise J  I had them guessing and wondering for a few days as to what we were going to be attempting.  As my Christmas present to the girls, I got them each a set of knitting needles, a needle stopper, and a skein of yarn.  All the girls came over and opened up their presents.  I got a mixture of excited/skeptical looks from all of them, but it turned out to be a fun night!  Jamie brought some awesome lasagna, Linda made some oh so delicious fudge, and Bethany brought the glue that holds it all together….the wine! After dinner, we poured some wine, got out the fudge and got to work.

Learning to cast on

Concentrating!

We used 10 ½ bamboo needles.  They seemed like a good size to start with.  Medium length, not too thick.  I found a blog that had some great links to video tutorials on how to start (referred to as casting on) and continue your basic stitch (referred to as the garter stitch).  She also has links to a really good video on how to finish (referred to as binding off) your project.  Here is her blog and here is the link to her post about knitting.  We all started/attempted to make book marks.  Seems best to start with something small and work your way up to something bigger like a scarf, right?  Well I’m hooked for sure.  Now I want to make scarves and hats galore!  Here is a picture of my lovely little bookmark.  

Apparently I got acrylic yarn, which I learned today was probably not the best idea.  You can see in the top picture that my yarn is starting to fray pretty badly.  That was making it difficult to make the patter look nice and even.  But as a first attempt I think it turned out alright.