In school we study history. The point of studying history is to learn and honor and never forget where we came from. I can't forget the Ruth Benedicts, the Elizabeth Cady Stantons, the Elizabeth Blackwells who struggled to allow women to go to college. Before their efforts, women weren't allowed to have higher education...they had a uterus http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter04/PATTwomb.html and that deemed them too hysterical to be in a learning environment!
I think of Elizabeth Zimmerman and how she used her passion for knitting to explain knitting techniques in such a knit-friendly way that it opened doors to future knitters and still does.Besides honoring the pioneers who made things easier for us today....I have to also look back on my very first knit project. I learned to knit in a time when you had to stand up to change one of the 3-4 TV channels. TV was still only black and white then. And we had to walk miles in the deep snow to the local LYS to get the limited types of yarn to make whatever project we could find a pattern for.
My very first project was a pair of adult booties. I would never be caught wearing such a thing today. But that first project started my creativity on a knit journey for my whole life!
It's important to stop every once in a while and remember how things were when we first started...not only as a knitter. It's easy to forget how far we've come as an individual and as a world.
What was your first project? How old were you when you made it? How did the whole experience feel? Did it inspire the knitter you are today? Or was it a bumpier road than that?
