Learning How to Purl

Knitting comes easy to some.  To others, they need a high dose of tenacity or the needles get thrown into the corner for all eternity.

I do not remember learning to knit, crochet, or sew.  I know for certain that it was my Gram who taught me all of these things when I was young.

Gram was a lady of many crafts.  She kept her sewing machine under the window at the end of her galley kitchen.  She would throw a few pieces of leftover fabric together and let me brother and me stitch it like crazy.  More often than not, in our youthful zeal to create yet another potholder, one of us would break the needle.  Okay, usually it was me.  And I still have this problem with my own machine today.

While I cannot recall my first knitting lesson I do have a firm picture in my mind of Gram fixing a pair of plastic needles.  To make them shorter and easier for my small arms, she popped the metal cap off and broke a few inches off.  She heated the broken end in the flame of her kitchen stove and jammed it back into the cap.

I was fascinated by what she did.  I was thrilled and amazed that she did that for me.  What a show of love.

I really didn't stick with the knitting.  There was just so much to do as a kid.  I as I got older I tried my hand at other crafts.  I crocheted.  I did cross stitch.  I quilted.  I even tried tatting with a shuttle.

In my late teens I decided to knit something and wanted to do more than just garter stitch.  I suddenly realized that I had forgotten how to purl!

Fortunately, it was Mom's bowling night.  Her team would pick her up.  Gram was on the team.  So when the car filled with bowling ladies pulled out, I ran out of the house, needles and yarn in hand and said:

"Gram, I forgot how to purl!"

I would like to say that roadside lesson stuck with me and I never forgot how to purl again.

But alas, I put down my needles and forgot.  Again.

When I decided to take up knitting again Gram was gone.

I had, and still have, several reference books on crafts.  I used them to learn how to purl all over again.  And this time, I kept knitting.

I purchased my first wooden needles.  A lovely pair of size 10 in rosewood fueled my new addiction.  I discovered novelty yarns and knitted a ton of scarves and boas.

I branched out and knitted hats and purses.

My first toe up socks.
Pattern:  Terpander designed by Melissa Morgan-Oakes
Published in Ann Budd's Sock Knitting Master Class

That made me want to try knitting in the round, something like socks.  So I bought a set of bamboo DPNs and knitted my first socks.


I have since graduated to 9" circular needles and save the DPNs for the toes.

I miss Gram and wonder if she realized how much of what she taught me (even the stuff I forget) has brought me so much joy.  I'm sure if she were still here she would proudly wear the socks I make.

Thank you, Gram.