Some people want to jump out of airplanes... I just want to make a sharf.

Personally, I'm too chicken to have an exciting bucket list. There is no way you'll find me jumping out of airplanes or bungee jumping into raging waters. It's just not for me. I prefer things a little less death-assuring.

So, I decided to learn how to knit.

Slapped knitting on my bucket list and high-fived myself for finding a free class offered at our local public library. I was on my way!

Let me just say that the class is taught by a lady who really likes knitting. A lot. She is very energetic about knitting. She knows a lot about knitting. And she is very energetic about sharing everything she knows about knitting.

Within seven minutes it was painfully obvious that only 4 of us had never picked up a pair of knitting needles in their lives. The other 16 students were finishing up details on their Winding Cables Pullover Knit Sweaters. Showoffs.

Bound and determined not to fail, I listened, inserted snarky comments loud enough for the lady next to me to snort at, and took my newfound skills home to practice.

It should be noted I am very good at adding stitches.

As the what-started-out-to-be scarf got wider and wider my mother suggested I count my stitches. I was amazed to find out that Row 1 (the one already on the needle when I arrived for my first class; the one the instructor did) had 30 stitches. I was now up to 45. This was going to be the strangest looking scarf ever.

My friend, Jenny, commented that I could call it a sharf: half scarf - half shawl. I think she's genius because now I don't feel like such a loser for messing up a scarf. All  the cool people are wearing sharfs this season. Duh.

I was hoping to get a gold star for Most Practiced so I sat down and, well, practiced. Except just when I was getting into a groove the darn yarn started knotting up. I'm not sure how that was even possible because it wasn't like I was doing cartwheels and somersaults. I mean, I was sitting in a chair, unmoving but for the skillful clacking of my knitting needles (which, by the way, can easily be used as a murder weapon; those suckers are sharp! The irony that I chose to try something just as dangerous as jumping out of a plane is not lost on me). So, there I was, practicing my knitting and I'd try to pull the yarn up from the skein of yarn....

Sidenote: a skein is balled up yarn with a center pull strand (in my case, a defunct center pull strand)... and also what you call a flock of geese flying in a V formation. Keep that in your Trivial Pursuit pocket.

.... anyway, I'd tug on the yarn and out popped a snarly hair ball, well, yarn ball; you get my point. So I called my mom and was all what am I doing wrong? I can't even pull the damn yarn out properly! and she proceeded to tell me about how she had to take a knitting class in 4th grade at their little parochial school she attended and she hated it so much that she skipped class. Of course, it wasn't hard to find her since she was only in the 4th grade and obviously not smart enough venture very far. Anyway, she got in a lot of trouble. But she did learn to knit. And she has learned that sometimes yarn just gets a wee bit tangled and it's easy to undo.

I now have approximately 450 yards of yarn strung all over my living room, dining room and part of my kitchen that is tangled.

It is safe to say the yarn is winning.



I was NOT kidding.