Tags
Bridgetown, BridgeTown Inc, CorKnits, first project, knit, knitting, Night Strike, Portland, Portland OR
Hello to anyone and everyone out there. Thanks for stopping on by, I really appreciate it. So, last time I explained why I’ve started CorKnits; and how soon, in the near future, I will be opening an Etsy.com shop, did I mention it will be happening fairly quickly?
Anyway, none of this would have come about if I’d never learned to knit. Yes my grandma did knit, but it never interested me when I was younger. So, sadly I don’t have that story. I guess I’ll have to wait to see her again in Heaven and we’ll have the best knitting party of all time (love & miss you Grandma Clark -_-). I came to knitting in a different way, but so appropriate for where it is taking me now.
After my first mission trip (you’ll have to keep coming back if you want to hear that story, it’s not today’s topic) I wanted to get involved in helping out in my local community. My church had recently begun going about once a month to a local thing called Night Strike, in downtown Portland, OR. It sounded pretty interesting, and I thought to myself that I should go sometime. Well it took me awhile to decide to finally do it, and I was very motivated in that time in my life to do something outside myself as I had recently had a very horrible negative friendship ending experience. I needed something outside of myself to help me through this time (I’ve promised myself, and thus you dear readers, to be as open and honest with all stories posted here, so you’re going to get the good and the bad).
Thus in January of 2010 I finally ventured out, and met my group from church in downtown Portland one cold Thursday night. I wound up helping clean up the church where we all gathered before heading out into the city, and then went down under the bridge and got to be a “Host and Hostess” where my whole job was to just talk to people. God sure likes to really use what you’re most uncomfortable with to help you grow. I am pretty awkward at small talk, once you get to know me I open up way more. But when I first meet you, well let me just say I always pray that we’ll find something in the first minute that we’re both very interested in.
I met a very cool guy named Keenan that night and we spent the rest of the evening chatting (God pushed me right out of my comfort zone and then said, “See I’ve got you covered”). And I was hooked. I live in Portland and going down more than once a month would be easy for me. So, I started going down every week.
Sometime that spring I met a gentleman named Chris, he was always there and offering to teach people how to knit or crochet just for the fun of it. I sat down one evening sure he would never be able to teach me how to get my hands to work together, but he did it. I didn’t have any project in mind, I just started casting on, and when I was ready he showed how to do the knit stitch, and I just kept going. I figured it was a good way to talk to him, but when the evening was over I’d give him his supplies back and be done. Nope, he insisted I keep everything, so I took it all home and would up knitting for over another hour that night. I was hooked hard and fast.
I still haven’t finished that project; I thought I was going to turn it into a scarf. I even got inspired and got two more colors, and sketched out in sharpie how I was going to do a sort of color block thing. I went quite far on it (52 inches), but I got tired of just doing the knit stitch, over and over and over. Chris had shown me how to purl, but I had since forgotten and since I only saw him once a week I went and bought a beginning knitting book at, “Michaels”. I went over how to do the basics on a practice square, and started playing around with how to do patterns by alternating knitting and purling. I know it was just all basic stuff, but I was having so much fun playing.
So, what has happened to that first project? Well, one it’s never going to be a scarf. I didn’t know what I was doing when I first cast on, and well . . . 60 stitches on 10(US) needles is a bit wide for a normal scarf.
A bit wide for a scarf.
You can see on the right side how I was learning to knit as I was going.
I might make two additional sections someday and turn it into a throw, but I’m not really sure.
My looong scarf/blanket/whatchamacallit. The purple in the first photo is the real color (ah the joys of cameras and different lighting).
I have so many ideas and other projects I want to do right now. What would you guys do with my first project? I’d love to hear your ideas. Or maybe you have a project that you just never quite finished. Please feel free to share your story.
^_^
jessica
If you’d like to learn about BridgeTown Inc. pop on over to their site, or feel free to ask me any questions. The also have a blog! Check them out, they’re a pretty cool bunch of people.
CorKnits 