Leah started me off with some size 13 needles and some yarn of unknown weight and composition – it took me awhile to get the hang of holding the yarn, but once that tiny step was passed it was a breeze! I only had to restart what I was doing once – casting on has become frightfully easy, but I had some trouble getting my stitches mixed up or confused, and occasionally sliding off the needle. Below is what became of this first try…not too shabby for my first shot, I think!

That was enough to get me hooked, but the solid colored yarn was actually proving problems for me, because I had a hard time seeing where to put the needle in as I went along, and things like that. So when I went to Wal-Mart later I picked up some multi-colored yarn and a pair of smaller needles – size 10.5 – and things went MUCH better. I’ve spent a lot of time since undoing and redoing what I was working on – I’m having a hard time “recovering” from mistakes – but below you can get a feel for what my new swatch was starting to look like:

Sorry for the blurry photo! So that particular yarn came with a recommendation for size 7 needles and since I’m LOVING the smaller needles I went ahead and picked up some 7’s (and another roll of yarn!) today, so we’ll see how this goes!

I will keep you all updated on my knitting projects – do you have any knitting advice or a tutorial to share? What is your favorite thing to knit?