Thanks!
Well, yes I do have more pictures (she said modestly.) Look
here
and here.
It did a good job of covering up my flabby upper arms and back fat. 
My next big lace project will be the Spider Queen pattern. Should be fun!
Yay! You look great. Back fat indeed! 
And Spider Queen looks like it would cause my brain to explode. Gloriously and in full Technicolor. Ew.
My maternal grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was about 8 or so. I guess it was a phase for her too, because neither one of us remembers how to crochet today.
My paternal grandmother has taught me how to knit several times. She doesn’t liek complicated patterns. In fact, she won’t even purl. So, I always learned to knit dishrags. In the last few years, I really got hooked and I went out and bought a how to knit booklet. That taught me alot (including how to purl).
Now, I’m pretty proficient with basic patterns and I’m working my way up to more complicated things. I don’t like to worry about gauge, so I don’t think a sweater is in my future. However, the lace patterns like Archergal’s are gorgeous. Someday, I’m going to tackle one of those!
Archer, your lace shawl is gorgeous! Brava! And I agree that the Spider Queen pattern should cause one’s brain to burst.
Here’s a hint: Since I started knitting again after a long break from the craft, I am keeping a photo journal of the things I make. I take a digital photo of each finished item, print out a 4x6" version and put it in a small photo album I bought just for this purpose. On the facing page, I write a brief description of the item, when it was made, who it was made for, etc. And then I slide a skein band into the page so I’ll always have washing instructions.
I decided to teach myself to knit when I was in lower grade school (second grade, I think) using books I checked out of the library. I made three tightly-stiched, holey doll blankets before I gave up. The last time I remember using the knitting needles for anything was when I broke my arm in third grade, and needed something to scratch inside my cast.
A couple months ago I started crocheting, because I needed something to do on the six-hour flight to Hawaii. (Side note: Squeeeeee, Hawaii!) So far I’ve made a sampler of every kind of stich, and round thingies of various sizes and denseness (I guess, I don’t really know what to call it). I haven’t made anything else because the easiest pattern in my book is for an afgan, which I know I don’t have the patience for, and I don’t know how to make anything else practical.
All told, I still think finger-chains are the best way to waste a ball of yarn. Sure, you can’t do anything with the result, and you have to take the yarn off your hand before you can do anything, but you don’t need any special tools or patterns or instructions or anything.
Yarnovers loop the yarn over the top of the needle. It creates an extra stitch for when you work the next row.
I have a friend who hates purling. She has taught herself how to knit backwards so she can do a row from right to left (i.e. the normal way) and then work from left to right, back across the row. 
Big_Norse, it’s a crochet hook, not a needle. And, anyway, it doesn’t matter how you hold the hook as long as you can make the stitches. My mom holds hers like a pencil, and works so fast your eye can’t follow it! I hold mine like a meat cleaver. (I’m not very good at crochet.)
Actually, I think the purpose of a yarnover is to make a hole in the knitting because most patterns that I have seen call for the yarnover to be knitted or purled together with another stitch in the following row.
About the only actual knitting story I have is the time I went into A.C. Moore this past fall to take advantage of the season change and check into their summer yarn clearance. There was a huge bin of the last season’s yarn marked down by at least half. Whole skeins for $2.00!
Of course, what I walked out of the store with was $24 worth of Auracana Nature Wool chunky in a beautiful deep blue that they’d just put out on the shelves that day. :smack:
This is why none of the people I’ve lived with have ever allowed me to go grocery shopping, too…
Fifty posts, and not one of you has punned on the title of the OP “Tell me your Knitting Stories” and “Yarns”?
Am I working alone here, people?
Synchronicity! Just this morning I was looking at a web page with directions on how to do this: Knitting Backwards
Yarn story: I have to watch my knitting much more carefully these days, since my new pup Jasper LOVES to grab a ball of yarn and run away with it. But he is a Terrible Puppy.
You know, CG, this is why we need you. For your cleverness. I wouldn’t have come up with that, you know.
Well, even when half-dead from allergies and lack of sleep, it’s my job to dispense purls of wisdom such as that.
beats CG about the head with a pair of size 50 needles
Oh, and I’ve often deeply considered adding a sig to my account here that says “He who purls before swine”.
It’s kind of ambiguous about who the swine are, though, so I haven’t actually done it…
Stop needling me. You just don’t seem to get the point. I’m a stitch.
What is the aversion to purling? Honestly, you put the yarn in front and away you go!!!
Oooh, CG. You’re gonna get it!
See, while we’ve discussed before the benefits of living closer together, you have now revealed one of the benefits of living half a country apart.
It’s funny, in the classes I’ve taught, I’ve had several students who HATED to purl. Then again, I’ve had a couple of other students who vastly preferred purling to knitting. As for me, I like 'em both. I even regularly make things in seed (moss) stitch because I like the way it looks.
Me and Mr. Peter Purl did not get along at first. Then I sat down and made myself knit several inches in stockinette. I hated it–so much so that I stopped knitting for a few months. I picked it back up a few weeks ago and started doing more fun stitches. I don’t hate that tricksy purl anymore. What I hate now: basketweave. Apparently I can’t count to 6, so I keep messing up the boxes. Aaaaarg, why did I agree to knit a scarf in basketweave for my roommate?