Kitchel Cindy - The Complete Idiots Guide to Knitting and Crocheting

Stop knitting, my husband implored as he drove around the nightmare of construction and traffic just outside Chicago. Your yarn is driving me mad, he continued as he flicked little specks of lilac chenille yarn from in front of his vision. How can I? I answered, five of these sweaters have to be finished by Christmas, in time for Coleens wedding. My needles had been going constantly on our trip from Iowa to Michigan to visit our son for the annual October parents weekend. Id made the grand gesture to create five pastel sweaters of the most delightful French yarn for this lovely girls sisters to wear atop antique white flowing skirts. If you dont stop we will both come down with lilac lung disease, complained my Iowa husband. I put down my needles in the interest of our health and well-being.

I had never really attempted anything quite so ambitious in all the years of needlecrafts, since my dear grandmother had started me crocheting afghan squares for the ladies at the Methodist home. Every yarn scrap we had was turned into these little masterpieces that fell from my hook like so many autumn leaves. My squares were better than my sisters, so what further motivation did I need to make knitting and crocheting an important part of my life? My achiever blood ran high. Finding a penchant for knitting in particular, I progressed to hats and mittens.

No self-imposed knitting assignment was as cheerfully taken on as when I decided to make a wardrobe for my first child. Certain I would have a little girl, I turned my attention to very complicated patternsone woven with ribbons in a particularly feminine shade of lilac. I had a bouncing baby boy, and his father, beginning his attack on lilac, would not allow me to dress him, even once, in the long coat and bonnet I had made for him. He did come home from the hospital in a fluffy white bunting of knit and purl and a soft yellow sweater and cap.

My love for needlecrafts didnt stop when my children outgrew the tiny outfits I made for them. I even love to knit during movies, and obtained some wonderful English knitting needles that allow me to silently move from row to row without disturbing my fellow moviegoers. Once, my needles were taken away from me before boarding an airplane. (Would I use these pointed objects in some knitter-gone-mad scheme? I pouted, to say the least.)

Knitting got me through high schoolI bonded and became fast friends with the girls who were not yet ready for weekend dates in my freshman year. Even when dates and boyfriends became a regular part of my life, my knitting certainly didnt take the back burner. In college, I moved on to creating socks and sweaters for boyfriends up and down the eastern seaboard. When I got my first job in publishing in New York, I made suits, dresses, and coats and got my office mates to take up knitting as well. Later, I landed a job at a large magazine due to my knitting knowledge, and was to give millions such instructions as a crafts editor.

I hope, through the pages of this book, The Complete Idiots Guide to Knitting and Crocheting, that you too will discover a passion for the time-honored traditions of knitting and crocheting. Authors Gail Diven and Cindy Kitchel give you all the basics, and then help you to put your new skills to work in easy-to-follow instructions that should have you snuggled under a self-made blanket in no time!

Ive knitted for me, for loved ones, for work, and for the belief that idle hands are just not such a good thing. Knitting has been useful in so many ways, granting me permission to be peaceful may be the most important. Since that trip to Chicago, though, knitting in the car is still a no-no. Maybe Ill soften my husband up with a new sweater....

May you never drop a stitch,

Nancy Lindemeyer
Editor-in-Chief of Victoria magazine