My knitting history.. the earliest years

OK. Yawn. Boring. But this is the history of where I began with knitting.

My Gram Shaler taught me to knit. (this would be the Grandma in pictures last month) I think she taught all the grandkids to knit...even the boys (but I would need a grandson to confirm that). We had to do the "slippers" I haven't found a pattern like the slippers we made, but they were not too dissimilar from this one:

I think mine were blue, for some reason.

Grandma also made every grandchild an afghan. Marcel pattern (like this Afghan that I believe Gram made for Dad and Jan).



You got to pick your own colors. For some reason, I picked purple (curse the 70s), so I have a lovely purple afghan and it is in a different pattern than she usually did. It's well done, but doesn't really match the decor in any of my rooms. Here it is:




One more afgahn from Gram. In the late 80s/early 90s, I wanted an afghan I could use in my home that matched. She was willing to do it if I bought the supplies. This is the pattern she chose... she didn't want to do a marcel pattern again. I guess Crocheting was easier for her. So this is a lovely "Rose Ripple" afghan. I have the pattern for this one. Great late 80s colors, eh?

I treasure each one of these afghans that my Gram made. Each is special to me, even if the colors are not ones I would chose today.

One last bit of info from my early knitting. At some point I got this pattern book. 35 cents and published in 1968. Thought I'd share since it is a lovely piece of nostalgia. I have notes in the book, but I never made anything from it.



Gram taught me the "American" style of knitting... hold the loose yarn in your right hand and loop it over the needle with a swish of your hand. This is how I'm trying to teach my girls now, too. I now knit "continental" style where the loose yarn is in your left hand and you kind of grab it with the needle and pull it through. But that is a story for another day. I never saw gram knit anything other than afghans, slippers and washcloths. I wish I had gotten a pair of her needles (did she have anything other than a size 8? Either pink or blue metal.) when she died, but that didn't happen. I also have the pattern for knit washcloths written out from her on a scrap of an envelope. That's a pretty cool thing to still have.

Once in high school I got this bright idea I was going to knit a sweater coat. I got a pattern and all the yarn (It was expensive, I recall). It was bright colors with wide stripes. Not sure what happened to that, but I never finished it and no longer have the pattern. And then the itch to knit lay dormant for many years...