Marly Bird’s BiCrafty Boot Camp: Team Thoughts on Month One of Learning How to Knit

Can you believe it’s been over a month since we launched BiCrafty Boot Camp: Knitting Lessons for Crocheters? On one hand, we can’t believe the time has gone so fast. On the other hand – WE ARE KNITTING NOW! Therefore, it does seem like a lot of time must have passed right? Sure, our knits and purls might not be perfect, yet. But we’re getting there. We are learning how to knit. In fact, we are knitters. And we’re so proud of how far we’ve come and how far you’ve come as well. Haven’t joined BiCrafty Boot Camp, yet? It’s not too late. Get the details here.

What We’ve Learned in Month One

It’s been one month since our first team update. At the time, we’d only had one knitting lesson. Nevertheless, we had learned a lot about knitting needles. Reminder: Signature Needle Arts is offering Marly Bird bootcampers a discount:

Get 10% off at Signature Needle Arts when you use promo code MARLYKNITS. Make sure it’s all caps. You can only use this code once per customer, during the length of BiCrafty Boot Camp. And it can’t be combined with other deals.

Other than that, all we really knew was that we were excited to get to start knitting. We’ve come so far in one month. Here are the Marly Bird BiCrafty Boot Camp Lessons we’ve had since then:

• How to knit stitch
• And so, how to garter stitch
• How to purl stitch. Therefore, we could stockinette stitch.
• How to change colors in knitting. And how to bury our ends.
• And this week we started learning how to knit 2×2 ribbing.

We’ve come so far! And even if you’re not all the way caught up, you’re doing great just the way you are.

Kathryn’s Thoughts on Month One of BiCrafty Boot Camp

If you’ve been following along with the newsletters then you know that Kathryn has been struggling a little bit with learning to knit. She loves BiCrafty Boot Camp. However, the timing was rough for her. She sustained a terrible dog bite injury a few months ago and her hand isn’t fully healed. Her second and third fingers of her left hand don’t quite work right. And she discovered the hard way that if she practices knitting for too many hours in a row then her hands won’t work for days. So she’s had to take it slow and that was super frustrating at first.

Switching Up Knitting Needles

However, she had a turnaround this past week when she realized that slow and steady was a good thing for her hand. Kathryn is a very fast crocheter. She had been working with ChiaoGoo 5″ interchangeable circular metal needles. She liked them a lot but they’re too fast for her beginner hands. She switched to ChiaoGoo 9″ straight bamboo needles. She loves them. Although many experienced knitters don’t like straight needles, she found that the shape was perfect for the state of her hands right now. And she’s loving the bamboo.

Knitting Slowly for Occupational Therapy

Bamboo needles are stickier than metal ones, which means everything moves slowly. That can be annoying for fast knitters, of course. However, Kathryn’s found that intentionally slowing down is exactly what she needs to learn how to knit. So these needles are perfect. Once she switched to them, she started really finally getting the hang of the knit stitch.

Her work went from this:

To this:

More importantly, she’s realized that the knitting can be an asset to her healing, rather than a detriment. If she knits for too long at once, then she re-injures her hand. However, if she knits very slowly and methodically, it actually helps with her hand’s healing process. She has written about crochet and knitting as occupational therapy in her book Crochet Saved My Life. And here’s more about knitting as occupational therapy.

Kathryn’s Goals for Next Month

If you’ve looked ahead then you know that BiCrafty Boot Camp will cover increases and decreases, knit seed stitch, and even the start of cables in May. Kathryn’s goals are:

• Learn how to purl stitch. She’s behind but she’s not letting that stop her from following the process.
• Practice the increases and decreases, even if only in knit stitch.
• Try out some new knitting needles. We’re focusing on sponsor Prym in May. We used ChiaoGoo in April, and we’ll have a blog post up tomorrow covering our thoughts on all of their different needles.
• Keep a positive attitude even when it gets challenging. And keep focusing on how knitting heals.

Cryssi’s Thoughts on Month One

Did you read the Meet Cryssi post we shared this month? Get to know my awesome executive admin better through that! You’ve also seen her in some of the lives and the newsletters that you got this month. Cryssi has been ahead of the game, completing the projects as fast as I can share them. She loves learning how to knit. Here are some of her pieces:

The Joy of Instant Gratification in Knitting

You might recall that as we started BiCrafty Boot Camp we switched from an original plan of making a week-by-week sampler scarf to doing smaller projects that would allow for instant gratification. As Cryssi shared in an early Boot Camper newsletter, that really works well for her. She added, “Having a finished washcloth in my hands this week made me want to knit more than ever before!”

Cryssi’s Tools

We’re all working with ChiaoGoo this month. We want to show you what each sponsor has to offer and they sent us so much great stuff to show you! Cryssi started off working with 24″ circular ChiaoGoo Bamboo Spin needles! She used Hobby Lobby I Love This cotton for the week two dishcloth pattern. She noted that it’s fairly slippery for a cotton, so she loved the grip that bamboo knitting needles provided.

Later in the month she switched over to Lily Sugar ‘n Cream to make her mug rugs. She noted that it’s not as slippery, so she took the chance and switched over to the 24″ circular ChiaoGoo Twist needles! It worked well for her. Plus she loves that sound of the needles clicking. It feels like the sound of a knitter, right?!

Cryssi’s Favorite Tip

Cryssi noticed some comments in the Marly’s Minions group about the struggle many people have using the left hand to move the yarn around the needle. She really emphasized that a big plus for her in learning continental knitting is that you can actually use your needle to “pick” the yarn, similar to the motion used when yarning over in crochet!

Plus, of course, you have to figure out what works for you. She says, “I’ve got really small hands – like child size lol – so purling looks different for me than how Marly shows it. I just use my left thumb to push the yarn down in the right spot.”

Cryssi’s Goals for Next Month

Cryssi says, “WOW MONTH TWO! I am excited to continue to improve my tension and grip but also to branch out into learning new skills. I really hope that by the end of this month I’ll have the muscle memory down so that I can focus on more fun aspects of knitting like color, design, and texture!”

Join Us in Learning How to Knit as Crocheters

We are all very excited about BiCrafty Boot Camp: Knitting Lessons for Crocheters. Being bicrafty is so much fun and we’re thrilled that so many people are learning how to knit right alongside our team members. Remember to join our lives every other Thursday on YouTube. And share your work on Instagram with the #bicraftybootcamp hashtag and in the Marly’s Minions Facebook Group.