I have been knitting and purling like a fiendish granny.

As predicted, I’ve spent more Danish monopoly money on yarn and needles.  But to be fair, I was getting awfully tired of my orange practice yarn.  I even have a basket, complete with handles, to put everything in (though I already had that).  And as an end result, I have a lovely, woolly…..orange square.  But… I ‘cast on’, I knitted, I purled, I ‘cast off’–all by myself–just to make my groovy little orange square.  It is not quite big enough to be a coaster and really will serve no purpose other than as an illustration of how ‘you tube’ videos really can teach anyone anything.

So am I a knitter now?  I don’t know.  Like the other 752,345 people that just started knitting, I am working on that true beginner’s project, the scarf.

And this is the point where I usually get stuck.  I go hellbent for leather, (or in this case, wool), all gung ho, full steam ahead, and then….well, you know that sound a balloon makes when it is loosing air rapidly?  That.  To serve as an illustration:  We traveled to Norway this year, and my children frolicked along the banks of the fjords looking for sea glass.  And they found lots of it.   We displayed some, I used pieces in some kid art.  We gave some away.  And I still had a ton of it left over.  Now, since moving to Copenhagen, I have made a friend who makes beautiful jewelry.  So I thought, well hey, I’ll make some sea glass necklaces.  And I did, and they turned out pretty good.  So then I made a few more necklaces and hey, they turned out okay too.  I have a bit of a necklace fetish to begin with, so the last thing I need is more necklaces.  But I made a few necklaces.  I felt like I could answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘can you make a necklace?’.  But am I a jewelry maker?  No.  Will I get to the point where I can answer ‘yes’ to the question, “Can you knit?”  Probably.  Am I a knitter?  You tell me.

What are the qualifications?  What’s the difference between proficiency and ability and being able to legitimately call yourself a ‘knitter’–or a jeweler, a photographer, a baker?

I have been working on my letter photography.  I have bought heaps of scrap paper to make my own stationary.  I am moving into the sickly sweet world of fondant icing to make my cakes look a bit more ‘polished’.  And I am knitting a scarf.  All good stuff, but nothing major.  Nothing out of this world.  Nothing that would make me call myself a jeweler or a knitter or a baker.  And this is where I am left, holding my little orange square.

I am Jill of all trades.  Master of none.