wow. bravo to you for being brave enough to show them! (and thank god they are not your latest work. i was, admittedly, a little scared).

You sure nailed the matching of the fabric lining though! Good job! the lions are cute. :o) What lurks in my past? Hm...not much knitting in the long ago past...mostly just some scary/useless/wrong size hats and felted bags.

Oh my ... Rainbow Brite! I love the lions, though!

Glad the fabric lining is so popular. It looks like one of my great buys. What did we make out of that anyway?

hmah-hmah-hmah!!! awesome.

Hmm, what scary knits do I have in my knitting past? Some scarves knit out of frou-frou yarn and a poncho! I still have it, but don't wear it anymore. I really have got to get rid of that thing.

Love the lining- and it matches perfectly with the bag! Genius! :)

:-D I think I have my second sweater from the eighties somewhere... I'll have to look for it the next time I visit my parents. The first one sadly doesn't exist anymore, it was a lovely study in mintgreen and white and three different kinds of novelty yarn.

Oh, the horror! One look at this post, and all the deep dark secrets I've managed to bury in my subconscious have come flooding to the forefront! The acrylic scarves that weren't quite rectangular....the mittens knit flat and seamed 3 stitches from the edge (why???), the hole-y slippers...and all of it in the itchiest, most garish color acrylic CHUNKY yarn (because it knit faster!)!
...going off to phone shrink for emergency session....

Hi,

I stumbled across your blog while looking for inspiration on knitting EZ February baby sweater. Gorgeous stuff you knit! I even really like this bag...I am a compulsive solid color knitter, so I have a lot of respect (ok, envy) for those who can dive into color (even wild combos!).

Are you kidding? Those bags would have been all the rage here in Halifax in the early 1990s. It was all about grunge and sweaters from the Andes. They would have fit right in. Not sayin' that they're haute couture, but they had their place in that day and time.

You are a brave woman. I shudder at some of my early projects. Nasty acrylics, etc.

Funny you should ask, because last summer, I actually found in my grandma's attic my VERY first attempt at knitting anything. It was intended to be a red garter stitch scarf, made out of this chunky acrylic. I was probably about 8 years old. Actually, I found the wobbliness of the "scarf" sort of touching.

I'll go... let's see, I was 8 years old and g-ma had just taught me garter stitch. On aluminum sz 14 needles, I cranked out an acrylic object in a delightful shade of orange sherbet that resembled something you might wear around your neck to the extent that I gave it to my bff for her b-day. Thankfully 19 years later she still has the good grace to call me a friend.

oh dear, i remember an evergrowing turquoise sweater for my then and up to last year brother in law.

it was awful.

i like your little pouches. it reminds me of andean knitting that i am reading right now. although they knit at 36 stitches to 2 inches and i am terrified by embarking on an original chullo.

bury your family in knits. that is a great way to bury. and your's are....

I think they are sweet! Besides, how old were you then? 12?

This (rav link) is a prime example of my early work. I soldiered through this sweater for about a year, a year which saw my tastes, knitting speed, and gauge change considerably. The bonus is that the whole hideous thing is acrylic, with aloe.

The pattern's actually not bad! Just my execution of it (take that however you like).

There is nothing obnoxious about those lions. That said, I knit 11 scarves out of Lion Brand "Handspun" when I first learned how to knit. My friends and family still use these scarves, even if I gift them with something else to replace the original monstrosities.

When I first learned how to knit socks (5 or 6 years ago) I made a pair for each of my husband's parents. That's right. My in-laws. My MIL's socks got holes in the toe after just one washing (I used delicate merino that was lovely and soft if not so much hard-wearing). My FIL's socks weren't superwash and felted after the first time he wore them. Oops.

I also knit my husband a rather gaudy fair isle number when we were just fiancés. He's worn it, oh, once. Out of love for me, not the sweater.

These folks are still my family and still love me, and since then I've learned to ASK people what they like, so I guess all's well that end's well!

Wow! How great to see your knitting site revived!
I thought I had lost not only a terrific knitter, but a near kin. You are still with us...no alien abduction? Do you have any other e-mail contact site? Sure like to know!