I went to my first knitting class, and it was great fun! The class lasted two hours, but I accidentally stayed longer because I could not stop looking at everything! I did a basic Google search for local knitting classes and found this great place in downtown Birmingham called KnitBham. I paid the $75 fee for two classes, set for two consecutive Saturdays this month, 2 hours per class. I have terrible social anxiety, which leads me to avoid any possible in-person interaction if I can help it. I’m hoping to change that, at least to where it isn’t an overwhelming, panic-inducing process every time, and I thought…why not do that using what I’m most interested in? Let me tell you – I’m so glad I found my courage and went.
KnitBham is located inside a pretty, sedately painted brick house that my husband tells me is called an “American Craftsman” style house. I just know many of the older, beautiful homes in downtown Birmingham, AL, are like this, and they are absolutely gorgeous. KnitBham is no different in this respect. Immediately upon walking in, however, every sense I had went into overdrive as there was nothing sedate about the interior of the shop. There were people milling around the store area, perusing everything the shop offers, from equipment, books, yarns, and needles to all the accouterments I never knew I needed. Though several individuals were in the shop, it wasn’t an overwhelming number of people, and the atmosphere of the place screamed cottage-meets-grandma-core, which quickly put me at almost complete ease. The front right of the house is a sitting area for groups to sit and knit together, while the left front is a work/storage space for knitting gear, incoming shopper’s jackets, umbrellas, and the like, which was good for me because it was storming and I’d had to wear my favorite cactus wellies and my husband’s raincoat (for emotional/mental armor and comfort as much as for the rain). The center and main part of the house is the shop itself, which is filled with everything knitting and crochet you could possibly imagine for purchase. Off to the left of the shop is a room where a long wooden dining room table takes up the center space with chairs around three sides and a bench on the fourth. This, I would learn, is where the classes are held.
After getting acquainted with the space, I met a couple of the women who run the shop and teach there. They were so welcoming and knowledgeable and really went out of their way to make each person who came in feel seen, heard, and welcome. I’m not ashamed to admit that this alone helped me decide to actually stay for the class rather than bailing on the whole endeavor; $ 75 be damned if it was going to be a miserable experience. I have learned through other life experiences that life is entirely too short to warrant feeling too terribly guilty over not staying at something that makes you absolutely miserable. The only exception to this is when it’s for family – you may be miserable, but you still do your duty because despite how they may drive you crazy, you still love them. At any rate, I stayed, and I learned, and I LOVED it. The anxiety melted away, time absolutely flew by, and before I knew it, I had been there for four hours because I stayed asking more questions and deciding I needed ALL the soft, fuzzy, pretty-colored yarns because I just knew I could now make my babies scarves for this coming winter.
Since the class was only two hours long, that didn’t give us a ton of time to really do a project. We were able to do just enough to learn the absolute basics and get started. I was given a kit when I came in for class, and it included two wooden knitting needles (not sure of the size of them at this point), a ball of green yarn, and a small blue needle that I learned is called a “tapestry needle.” The group of ladies I was in this class with were wonderfully sweet, a bit sassy, and very knowledgeable, yet somehow still humble and refreshingly funny. Our instructor deserved a nomination to sainthood for her patience with us. She got us through many bumbling first attempts, helped us correct absolute screw-ups, taught us how to find our places when we dropped a stitch off our needles and taught us a nearly overwhelming amount of new terms and all about the fabrics we can use and where they come from. I learned how to do the slip-knot, the knitted cast-on, a long-tail cast-on, and then a basic knit stitch. I learned to make sure to do my stitches in multiples of four and that I can use my belly button as a prop for the knitting needles to make life easier until I develop the method that works best for me and my RA hands. Lastly, I learned how to bind off when I finish a project, and this leads me to…Pickle Rick.
My tiny project from this first class using the green yarn ended up looking rather like a sweet midget pickle that could maybe be used as a keychain adornment. Hence, I have dubbed it Pickle Rick. I may frame him to commemorate the moment of beginning this knitting journey so that, one day, when I am hopefully much more proficient, I can look at it and say, ‘Wow, look how far I’ve come!’. If it turns out I lack the coordination (or patience) for knitting, well, at least I’ll still have Pickle Rick.