Never fear the stitch......or don't be affraid to fail

So, knitting has never been easy for me.  First, I am left handed.  This poses several challenges in every day life, not just knitting.  Second, I never had a "mentor" that could help me.  No one in my immediate family does anything like this (but that's a whole nother story), except for my daughter, and I have had to teach her myself.

Take spiral bound notebooks for example.  Definitely NOT left hander friendly.  Or 3-ring notebooks for that matter. 

Pens?  Don't get me started.  The only kind I have ever found that don't transfer to the side of my hand or smear while writing are gel pens. 

The only thing I don't do left handed is play golf.  I golf right handed, because no one I golf with is left handed.  I putt left handed....but this isn't about golf :p

Well, long story short, I have always wanted to branch out my knitting and crocheting.  I have knitted hundreds, if not thousands, of just little sqares that are knitted.  I never even knew how to purl until about a year ago when with the power of youtube.com, I found some left-handed knitting instructional videos.

Yesterday, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some yarn, new needles, a cable hook, and a few other things.  Last night, I started playing around with the stitches, and ended up taking everything apart - twice.  I was about to give up on it, yet again.  I kept losing track as to what row I was on and kept purling when I was supposed to be knitting and vice versa.  I put it down for the night and decided to try this morning.  I have a notepad that I am writing the stitches down on now, to keep track of what row I am on.  I keep saying in my head "knit the knits, purl the purls" while catching up on the last 3 seasons of Southpark on Hulu.

And this is what I have done this morning- this is the front side:

And this is the back side:

I'm very happy with it.  I'm glad I didn't give up this time.  Sometimes, you have to restart multiple times to get through a rough patch - not just in knitting, but in life also.