I've never heard of it either, but I agree it is a wonderful idea. I always wanted to learn how to knit. Maybe I could learn by next year? Or does it take much longer than that?
If you stick to it, learning by next year should be no problem at all. I taught myself to knit, and I picked up scarves and stuff pretty easily. I just got impatient with imperfection (I have a real problem with that; it's something I'm working on
), but once I allowed myself to make some not-great things, I really took off. It's a lot of fun creating things - This week, I finished a sweater for my husband - my first actual piece of clothing - and it came out great!
Anyway, it can take a little while to get comfortable with it, but it's so worth it in the end; finishing a project is such a feeling of accomplishment, and working on it is a lot of fun, and often relaxing.
What a great idea. I'm not really a knitter though. I can crochet up a storm and did a few hats last year as gifts, but when it comes to knitting...its pretty much scarves as they are a straight line 
Maybe I can dig out my knitting needles as I do believe they made the trip over with with with my tote of yarn.
The nice thing about hats is that if you have circular needles or double-pointed needles, you can just knit in a circle, and it's essentially like just going in a straight line without ever having to turn the work.
Decreases to make it smaller going up to the crown are pretty simple to do, so it's really a straight-forward, easy pattern.
I lived in Arizona before I moved to England, so the things I crocheted and knitted rarely had much use, so I started a group where we made blankets and shawls to donate to homeless shelters and hospices (and anywhere else that might need them). I think there's a couple of groups like that here, but I haven't made time to research them while I've been getting settled. So I was excited to see this, because I can work on these until the deadline, and find a new place to share work in the meantime. Of course, here, there's plenty of use for knitted items, so I may make some things for my husband and me, too.
