Parlez-vous knitting? (part 1)

Many years ago when I was in junior high school and later senior high school, I studied French. In the fifth year the class was conducted completely in French. Some of us were very enthused that we had learned a second language. One of my good friends would call me on weekends so we could practice our French on the phone. (Really!) I didn't speak French for many years after high school. After college when I traveled and worked in French-speaking countries, I found that my ability to speak French had returned. I could speak the language, understand it, and be understood. My French, however, was never as fluent as my English.

It's been many years, since I've spoken French. When I try to speak it now, there is almost always an awkward hesitation while I actively do a translation before uttering a word. It's nearly impossible for me to understand the language when someone else speaks it. When I read, I can understand it... if I have all the time in the world....

My hand knitting is like part of my history of speaking French. There was never a time when I studied hand knitting 5 days a week with extra practice on weekends, but I have experienced several excellent hand knitting lessons. For awhile I was hand knitting regularly, several times a week. Now I am hand knitting only a few times a month. If I start knitting regularly again and more often, I may become better at it,  maybe even fluent eventually. Mostly I hand knit swatches to learn or practice a new technique. Here is one object I actually did complete.

The elf(?) hat I hand knitted, based on "Air Wolle Ridged Swirl Hat" from Gotta Knit,
DH calls it the "Reservoir Tip" hat. This may be the only time I've ever completed anything from a pattern!

Machine knitting is my native tongue. Whenever I learn something new in hand knitting, I immediately translate it into machknit language so I can really understand it. I do this even if it would be more difficult on the machine, just makes more sense to me.

And now recently, I've started loom knitting! As a machine knitter, learning loom knitting was kind of like an American English speaker learning to understand British English. Not that much of a stretch! I watched a couple of videos on YouTube and I felt ready to loom knit anything.

How and why did I happen to start loom knitting?

To be continued...


Last edited 18:04 ET 11/10/2011