urifile

Meagan Blanchette EDC 102 Dr. Noonan September 10, 13

Knit Happens For my first year of undergraduate education, I attended the University of Vermont. The campus overflowed with individuals who expressed their academic interests contrasted with hippies who barely showed any worries. However, each person brought a little something different to create the diverse environment as to form a whole. The winter in Vermont is incredibly long. The skies are dark by three with the air so harsh it leaves you with an ice tan (a.k.a. frost bite.) So for someone who doesn’t snowboard or ski, I had to find my winter hobby. One day my suitemate was tucked away in her room with knitting needles creating a long chain. I didn’t know what she was doing, but my curiosity grew very quickly. Before I knew it, my suite mate and I were walking to Michael’s craft store down the road. There, I picked out my favorite colored yarn and shiny pink knitting needles. When we returned back to the dorm room, I put those needles to work. By work I mean attempting to knit. I had my suite-mate start it for me and off I went. I was on my own. I kept adding rows and dropping stiches….everything that knitters try not to do. After an hour or so of my attempt at knitting I sat back and reflected on my work. First, I held it up and I saw that my “scarf” resembled that of a chiminea. It started off small at the bottom and increased in width and then began to slim out again. I knew that something wasn’t right. I also knew that my suit- mate started out my scarf with twenty rows and somehow I was up to fifty. I knew that I should probably start over. One pull of a string, an hours’ worth of work had diminished in seconds. So I started from scratch and each time I retried to make this scarf a scarf it slowly went from a fire-place housing to a comfortable neck decoration. Before I knew I could knit a little faster and then I didn’t even have to look anymore. However, I was bored and wanted to take my uniform chain of knitting to the next level and switch up the design. Knit one pearl two was a saying drilled in my head. This created a pattern that resembled braiding and was a tighter woven design. Each hour that passed, every yard of yarn used, eventually I had this knitting thing under control. So much so, I became didn’t want to stop. Ever. I started making infinity scarves in one day and knitting in every free ounce of time that I had. This was the most calming hobby I have ever taken up. I look back now and see how far I have come and the only reason that I have came so far is from practice. Each scarf takes about fourteen hours and I have made well over fifteen scarves so that’s two hundred and ten hours of knitting and I still have plenty more years ahead until I’m officially a grandma