This blog post was previously posted on my old blog page on a different website
It was originally posted 07/06/2026, and has been copy-pasted and posted here so that it can be read on my blog here too.
I've been into crochet for a few years now, and originally I was very against learning how to knit. I just thought it would be far too slow for me, and I hated the idea of learning a time-intensive and painstaking artistic craft that could be replicated with a machine.
A few months ago, I bought 2 pairs of knitting needles, uncertain and unsure if I would use them. They sat in a cup with my crochet hooks and stitch markers and yarn needles until about a week ago. In the pure name of seeing if I could, I picked up one of the pairs of knitting needles and a small skein of some nice yarn (a 355 yard skein of green, hand-dyed merino wool) and tried to see if I could knit without ever looking up a tutorial. (I chose the yarn that I did because I heard that knitting is far more yarn-efficient, and I knew that 355 yards is hardly enough to make anything when crocheting).
I treated this in my head like a challenge -- a test of my skills just to prove that I would be able to figure it out. I almost immediately failed. After fumbling around for a bit, trying to figure out how to cast-on, I brought out a crochet hook and crocheted a starting chain. I then went and threaded the knitting needle through the backs of each chain, which surprisingly worked.
The first few rows were clumsy, and I spent half the time I was knitting just trying to figure out how to hold the yarn and move the needles in order to get the working yarn through each loop. after a few rows though, I got into a rhythm. I discovered that while my progress was slower, I could get through each row far faster than I could ever get through a row of single crochet or moss stitch. Not only that, but after I had knit a decent ≈30 rows or so, I could knit without having to look back at my project anywhere near as much as I would with crochet. I could easily watch anime with subtitles while knitting without having to worry about missing lines of the show or slowing down my knitting.
I am now roughly 1/4th of the way through knitting a tube top. I have since discovered (through a conversation with my mom) that apparently I am doing what's called a purl stitch, which is like a backwards knit, and that you're supposed to alternate knit and purl rows for the traditional knit look. Honestly, I kindof like the look of my all-purl-rows project so far a little better than I like the traditional knit look.
Realizing I actually, for some unknown and inconceivable reason, like knitting a lot, was pleasantly surprising. I tend to struggle with a feeling of embarrassment when I discover I was wrong about disliking or avoiding something, as if I feel shame for not completely understanding myself yet at 20 years old, but this realization has helped me also realize that feeling that embarrassment is stupid and lame.
12 year old me was cringey but cool as fuck, and most importantly, happy. Would she think that me enjoying knitting and crochet and sewing and indie-folk music is lame asf? Obviously. But she is (was) 12 and dumb so wtv. She's still in there now, policing everything I do, placing things in the "cool" and "lame" bins in my brain, and 16 year-old me is there too, picking ideas that 12 year old me has sorted out of the "cool" bin and gently putting them in the "lame" bin, too.
They're both cool, but also lame for thinking everything around them is lame. Rock music is cool, indie movies are cool, knitting is cool, grandmas are cool and gardens are cool and indie-folk music is cool and soup is cool and everything I enjoy is cool (soup is warm not cool, do not give me cold soup). I think that the things I hate are cool too, in their own way. I don't enjoy lifted trucks, loud cars, busy cities, and many other things. It's cool that people enjoy them though. And maybe I will if I give it time (I REALLY hope not, but then again, 12 year old me hoped I would never like knitting).
I was wrong and I'm really happy about it :)
(Pic is from yesterday, progress has been made since then)
If you read this far, you get a lollipop :P
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