Personal Revelation # 4

4. My first and only knitting project was an utter disaster.

When I was a girl, I spent three years in 4-H being taught how to sew, embroider and knit. My knitting project was to make a very simple pair of slippers.

Oh, it started off well enough. I bought some nice red yarn that I liked. I picked an easy pattern of basic ribbing. I diligently knitted and purled and kept my tension firm but not excessively tight. However, for reasons that are still a mystery to me, my ribbing went terribly awry. Halfway through one of the slippers, the hills became valleys and the valleys became hills, if you know what I mean. There was no way to fix it without starting all over again, so I just sewed the slippers together and left it at that. The judge at Achievement Day pursed her lips a bit, but who cares?

My greater error became apparent after Achievement Day when I actually started wearing the slippers. It turned out that the yarn I had chosen was much, much too lightweight to withstand any of the normal demands made on slippers. After only a couple of wearings, the slippers had big holes in them. They were absolutely useless and went straight into the garbage.

I never picked up knitting needles again.