Why I started knitting

This is the first blog post for knit and crochet blog week! Yay!

Alright, so why did I start to knit? My mother taught me how to knit, crochet, and cross-stitch when I was around age 12. I remember hating knitting so much, mostly because I always dropped stitches. I continued to crochet and cross-stitch for the next several years, and even won some prizes at the yearly fairs while in high school. I didn't pick up knitting again until November 2008.

I really had to think twice about whether I'd be honest and broadcast the real reason or if I'd take the wildcard topic for this one. Now, the primary reason I picked up knitting was because I needed a distraction from another stressful obsession in my life. This isn't something I normally talk about in the knitting world; I try to keep my sets of friends separate because the topic can either be uncomfortable or leads to "advice" that isn't constructive or helpful. My husband and I got married on February 29, 2008 (hello, leap year!), and we decided to start trying to get pregnant in the summer of 2008. It's not as easy as they let on, folks. It's stressful, and if you add in my tendency towards obsession,  trying really sucks. So I decided to start knitting again as a way to distract myself. Little did I know that I was just adding another obsession!

I started out with a dishcloth and quickly moved on to the central park hoodie and toe-up socks. Right now I have no less than 7 projects OTN, and I have to fight myself to not cast on any more. As for the baby? We tried for over a year and sought infertility testing (inconclusive, btw) before stopping in October 2009 while I applied to grad school. I didn't get in, so we're going to resume trying again.

I'm now thoroughly addicted to knitting and I've gained a lot of friends in the process! Come back tomorrow to see the next post in the 2010 Knit and Crochet Blog Week!