Knit one, purl one, ah, forget it

Knitting has always seemed like craft on another plane to me, a high-up one that's more or less unattainable unless you have a grandma / kind, elderly neighbour who can teach you how it's done. I see all these women shoving needles in and out of long bits of wool and producing something that isn't just a tangled mess and I think, wow, that is AMAZING.

So a few years back I decided to teach myself how to knit using one of those ''teach yourself how to knit" DVD and magazine combos (you know, the kind where the first issue is at a "special introductory price of just $2" and the subsequent issues are "just" $12 each). It wasn't easy. The instructor on the DVD sounded rather like she was an automated air hostess teaching passengers about the safety features of the plane, and despite her calm demeanor, for the most part I felt like the higher plane of knitting was crash landing with me in it. My first knitting session featured a lot of swearing, plenty of tangled yarn and me yelling "pause...PAUSE!...rewind...PAUSE!" at my craft-tolerant husband, who had heard my cries of frustration (from the depths of the back garden, most likely) and came running in to see if he could help by operating the remote control while I watched the instructional DVD.

Eventually I got the hang of it and even learned how to switch colours so I could knit stripes. I had grand visions of knitting my own jumpers, of becoming one of those women who could knit while they were watching a movie, never once taking their eyes off the screen, of investing in high-quality cashmere and making beautiful scarves using decorative stitches...

Then I realised how incredibly slow I was at knitting, and how it gave me RSI, and how expensive super-nice wool is, and I put aside the very beginnings of a black-and-green striped something and went back to making critters and drinking vodka instead.

I came across the black-and-green striped something recently (I started it so long ago I have no idea what it was originally intended to be), added a few bits and bobs and turned it into this little guy, Bug - so named to remind me what an absolute bugger knitting is!