I learned to knit and crochet from my mom at the age of about 8 or 9, a little bit before it was taught at school as well. Actually crafting was almost mandatory skill for a girl or woman in a socialist country. You could not just go to the shop and buy clothing you like. To have something special and a little bit different from the 70-ties-80-ties poor supply at soviet shops you had to be able to knit, crochet and sew. However the supply of crafting equipments, yarns, fabrics etc was very poor as well…
My first „projects” were mostly socks and Latvian style mittens. I found some that style mitten patterns in Ravelry for illustration: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/latvian-national-ornament-mittens; http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fringed-latvian-mittens;
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/graph-19---district-of-vidzeme---latvian-mittens. Of course, mine were far from such perfection which you can see in the links above. At first I discovered that stranded colours knitting shrinks, so I tried to avoid this shrinking. That ran into my mittens being very loose and ugly. Another interesting detail - when I made mistakes I didn't allow my mom to help, I didn't allow her even to touch my knitting because I needed the feeling that it is 100% my job. However knitting seemed rather close and familiar technique for me anyway – unlike crocheting. Crocheting was a little bit disaster for me. I remember that I had to crochet a circle form for my crafts lesson at school. I tried to follow instructions (well, I usually lost the starting point actually) but unfortunately my circle became a bowl when growing bigger. I frogged it several times and made again but it always aspired to a bowl. I was so angry with that silly bowl!
After some time (at high school maybe) I realized that not only mittens can be knitted. However my fantasy didn't go very far anyway that time. Usually I knitted sweaters, some of them even happened not to be too ugly. Then there was a period in my life when I almost didn't any crafts at all. I laid it aside just after the capitalism had come at last - everything was available at shops suddenly, so no need to struggle anymore. After some time again I realized that knitting is not only a way to dress oneself at poor economical conditions. Knitting is fun, knitting is a way to express my creativity and after all it is a smart method to hide my lazyness.
