How I Became 'An Accidental Knitter'

If you had a peek at my sidebar during the past week, you'll have noticed a new addition. The 'Blogtoberfest'  badge has made an appearance.

 

I found this month of bloggy loveliness very randomly on Ravelry. I, as usual, was late to the party but I saw other crafters also joined in late, so I thought I would dive in and have a go. It will get me back into blogging again, hopefully I'll gain new readers, I'll find new blogs, and it'll all be lovely. 

I thought what a better time to tell you how I started blogging than during blog month! So, here is that very post. Enjoy...

Back in February 2011 my M.E was '40% moderate to severely affected' (you can see what that means, here; you can also find out what its like to have M.E), which basically means I could do a little activity during the day (previously I was so ill all I could do was sit & stare into space). Finally having the ability to do something was brilliant, but I was unsure on what to use this valuable energy on. I had heard that some people turned to crafts, as a sort of therapy to deal with the amount of pain they were in. I then hobbled downstairs to find some yarn and needles carefully placed on the living room coffee table. Rizzle was knitting a mermaid, but she had gotten bored with the project and had tossed it aside. I asked my Mother, who knows the basic 'cast on/off, knit & purl', to teach me.

She casted on for me, and took a couple of minutes to show me how it worked. It took me forever to grasp, due to my brain fog. Finally, though, I got the hang of it. Before going to bed Mother warned me not to wake her up to ask knitting related questions (something I would have probably done had she not told me) I spent the entire night, cuddled up in bed watching Pride & Prejudice (BBC 1995 series) and knitting (due to my M.E I spend a few hours in the day sleeping, then stay awake all night).

I was completely and utterly hooked. The next day, after copious amounts of rest, I logged onto the computer to find out more about knitting. I came across the blog Damn, Knit & Blast It! ... knit happens by Susan Crowe. For a week or two, I regularly read Susan's blog, constantly coming across the thought of 'I wish I had a blog'. Then one day I thought, 'Why don't I have a blog?' Starting a blog just as I'd started knitting sounded like a great idea for me, it would be the perfect way for me to track my knitting progress!

I had an allegation put before me some time ago that I am simply out there to get hits. This, readers, is not true. I just wanted to write about my knitting. Getting hits, comments and even better, regular readers, was just a brilliant bonus. I also thought that blogging would help me to learn more about this wonderful craft, which it did.

I started my blog on Saturday, 26 March 2011. For the first 6 months or so, the knitting & blogging was atrocious. Despite that, though, I still like to re-read those posts occasionally to see just how far I've come. I remember blogging about how 1x1 rib was one of the most difficult things to do, and to knit a row of 90 sts took 15 minutes. Now, it is so much different. I squirm at the idea of intarsia and to knit a pair of gloves in 3 hours is quite slow.

So, that is how I became An Accidental Knitter. I'm amazed to see how far this blog has come. In a year I've nearly had 34k of hits, the blog has been featured in a magazine and I've had people approach me to write about them. I do hope over the next year I continue to grow as a knitter, writer, that I learn how to train my blog so that it allowes me to reply to comments, and to continue to entertain my readers. I don't care if my readership stays stable, gets larger or even drop, just to know that I have a few people who regularly take the time out of their busy schedules, perhaps even using their knitting time, to read my blog is wonderful :)

Hope you all have a lovely Monday x