So I thought I'd pick up knitting.  I puttered around some websites and saw some things that looked pretty neat.  So I thought to myself, well if I'm patient, and have extra time, no reason I can't knit myself a fancy little cardigan, right?  Wrong, oh so very wrong!  I spent about 3 hours looking at diagrams for stitches on About.com (lots of info there!) and then, once I'd figured out how to start it, I went ahead.  I knitted for a couple hours (slowly and painfully) and discovered something called "tension"  Apparently mine varies because my stitches were all either loose and floppy, or these tight little things that I had a hard time poking my needle through, so my edge looked reeeeally weird.  I abandoned it completely and started again.  Same thing.  So I decided to knit a scarf, but it sure doesn't look very thick and warm.  One day I'll figure it out and, in the meantime, much applause to those of you who have mastered it!

I took a beginners knitting class awhile back. 4 sessions for something like $45. Only I was the only beginner. The rest already knew about knitting somewhat. So they were already to go and I was still trying to grasp the basic steps. I really hate it when people who are not beginners take a beginners class and then the beginner does not learn as well as when all beginners would be asking the same questions. Basically, they were there to chit chat. Later, I learned to crochet and went one on one with a co worker over several noon sessions and I learned a lot more. I gave her a $10 gift certifcate later for her time.

With the knitting, I did make a go of it and it got easier. I bought Knitting for Dummies, which is a helpful book. Plus there are a couple of web sites which give the basic knit, perl, and cast off instructions with videos - she talks you through it and I replayed them many times. SO I went back to the class with questions. I really do recommend getting one on one help for a few sessions though. I made a checkerboard scarf - hot pink - and you can tell which end I started on as my knitting became much better looking over time. It certainly was a huge learning curve though, for both knitting and crocheting. Very difficult for me to grasp at first, but now it's doing pretty good.
If I have the tv on, I tend to make more mistakes.