Expectations

Expectations... I had them. My knitting progress (and enjoyment of said progress) has vastly exceeded my expectations.

When I first started knitting, my inexperience meant that I had no frame of reference for anything, so my expectations were based on the limited knowledge I had. For instance, the first thing I made was a scarf, in aran weight, that required 1 ball of yarn, casting on 20 stitches. This formed the sum total of my knitting knowledge.

When I decided to make a scarf for my brother, I didn't really know much about yarn weights, or needle sizes or anything. I bought a ball of chunky yarn, and the recommended needle size, and cast on 20 stitches. I expected to only need 1 ball, after all, that's all I needed for my last scarf *smiles*

After finishing that ball, the scarf was really very short. This is obvious now, but was pretty surprising at the time *laughs* Another ball bought, and used, followed by another one, and I finally had a scarf the right length.

It was a lot wider than I expected, which I now understand is a result of casting on the same number of stitches in chunky weight as I did in aran... Didn't know that at the time though ;) I was lucky that the 3 balls I'd bought at different times matched as well as they did - I didn't really know anything about dyelots then either...

I was also at the time making an eyelash yarn scarf for my mum, on tiny needles. I expected them to take about the same length of time, being that they were both scarves *rolls eyes*

So, with more knowledge has come more realistic expectations. Once I got into knitting and decided I really wanted to keep at it, I started reading blogs, forums and tutorials online, gathering as much information as I could.

The other reason for choosing "expectations" for my "E" post is boyfriend. He had pretty rigid expectations of what knitting meant (in fact, he still struggles to comprehend that knitting with cotton on tiny needles, like for my green top, actually qualifies as "knitting")

His expectation was that knitting equals chunky wool with old ladies churning out blankets and fisherman's jumpers. Like this:

When I first suggested knitting him socks (as he's not really a knitwear person, and I wanted to make him something) the look of horror on his face was priceless *laughs* He was adamant that it would never happen. No socks.

It wasn't until I finished my first socks that he started to mellow and confessed what he thought I actually meant... He expected knitted socks to be the sock equivalent of the jumper above - big, thick and woolly. As he never has need for big, thick and woolly socks, he didn't want to have me make them and then have to pretend to like them. Once he saw how awesome my socks were, and discovered what the type of fabric created is actually like, he suddenly wanted his own pair.

I expected him to want plain black socks (although I was going to push him towards charcoal grey), but he very sensibly decided that if I was to go to the trouble of knitting giant man socks, they should at least be a bit different than all the plain black socks he already has.

So he's having blue, stripey ones *grins*

When I bought this, none of us (me, mum, boyfriend) knew what to expect once it was knitted, so I cast on for a small section so we could see. That's the fun of sock yarn though, I think, not knowing quite what to expect from it ;)

Tomorrow I plan to post 4 day's worth of the 30 day photo challenge... Stay tuned.