UFO Time Capsule

I first learned to knit when I was 16. My mom taught me continental style, as that was the way she was taught. It made sense to me - I learned to crochet when I was 9, so holding the yarn in my left hand felt natural.

The downside was that my purl rows were always looser than my knit rows, so I hated the way my stockinette stitch looked. (And before you try to suggest garter stitch - I've never liked it, unless I'm using yarn that totally hides the stitches.)

So then my mom gave me a circular needle and explained knitting in the round. Stockinette stitch without the purling. Spectacular! But what to knit? Why, tubular scarves, of course! I knit striped tubular scarves for myself, my friends, probably even my cat, during the next year or so.

What you see here was the last tubular scarf I knit from that period of my knitting life - probably when I was around 17 or so. I remember getting kind of bored with just knitting tubes, but being too lazy to learn anything further. And it was another 9 years or so before I forced myself to practice and figure out a way to even out my tension. Not much (if any) knitting happened during those years.

I found it in a box of old yarn I was going through in preparation for the kids' school rummage sale this weekend, still on those first circular needles my mom bought me when I was 16. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. It's only half-done, and I have no idea what happened to the rest of the yarn (Unger Fluffy). Not that acrylic yarn, even amazingly soft acrylic yarn, is really in my knitting repertoire anymore.

But for now, it will remain simply a piece in my own personal knitting museum.