My grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was about 7.  After college, I inherited her crochet hook collection, since I was the only person in the family who knew how to use them.  At work, a friend of mine would knit at lunch.  She was a loom knitter, as well as a regular two-needle knitter, which I thought was fascinating.  When work got overwhelming, I needed some stress-relief and ‘instant gratification’.  It had always frustrated me that I couldn’t figure out that whole ‘two needle thing’, so I asked my knitter friend to teach me.  Last Christmas, she gave me a set of circular needles and a sampling of yarn and showed me how to get started.  A number of youtube videos later, I had the startings of my first Zoomy Yarn scarf – with a fair amount of ‘Amish flaws’.

January came along, and I had a trip to visit my family in California.  I wanted to show off a bit, so I started making gifts like crazy – I had a Gramma/Grand-daughter matching scarf set for my mother and my niece, a hat for my newest niece, and the makings of a ribbed scarf.  I did some research to find out if I could knit on the plane (which you can, btw) and flew from Chicago to California with my ‘fashion show’ all ready to go.

It hadn’t occurred to me that what I was doing was supposed to be difficult.  New knitters aren’t supposed to be able to make hats?  What’s that all about?  People kept commenting that my work was really impressive – but they were friends and/or family, so I figured they were required to say it.

Some time in March, there was a 50% off sale at a friend’s local yarn store, so we took a trip out there, and started planning for Mother’s Day.  My boyfriend’s mother lives near the beach, and I figured it would be nice to have something to wear over her suit – so I made a sort of robe/duster sweater-thingy with size 19 needles.  I had no pattern – just an idea and some general advice from the yarn store owner.  When I started casting off in the car on the way home, my knitter-friend’s husband rolled his eyes, looked at his wife and said ‘she’s a savant’.

….and that’s how the Knitiot Savant was born…

4 Responses to “About the Knitiot Savant”