So, I started my second project this morning. This time, I have an actual pattern (ooooh!) and I'm using circular size 11 needles and dark green Cascade Eco Wool yarn. The pattern is for a shrug/vest and it called for Baby Alpaca yarn, but at $15 - $20 a skein, that was waaay over my budget. The Eco Wool came in a huge 478-yard skein, which will most likely be enough to finish the whole project, and it only cost me $17, as opposed to 4 Baby Alpaca skeins at $60-$80. I love the dark, forest green of the Eco Wool, though.
Casting on 120 stitches, compared to the 24 I had to do for the scarf, was an adventure, to say the least. My instructor gave me stitch markers to place after every 20 stitches, but I'm so obsessive/compulsive about counting that I felt I needed them after every five! I made some mistakes on my first cast-on, so I had to rip out a bunch of them and re-do them. This happened several (I'm fuzzy on the exact number) times and it seemed to take an eternity to cast on. It got to the point where I was asking my instructor to inspect every 5 or 10 stitches so I wouldn't have to rip too many out. The knitting table at the shop was very busy today and lots of conversation going on, so I had to really tune out the distractions and pay careful attention to what I was doing.
Once my cast-on was complete and passed inspection, I could start knitting my first row. The pattern tells me to knit 2 and purl 2 until I reach 7 1/2 inches. Then the real fun begins. After I knit those first 7 1/2 inches, I decrease to 60 stitches by knitting 2 stitches together and then purling 2 stitches together for 16 inches. After that--well, I'll talk about that when I get there.
Compared to my scarf, which had 24 stitches per row, it takes a hell of a lot longer to finish a row of 120 stitches. The circular needles give me a lot more room for finished stitches on a row and ones that still need to be done. This project will be a challenge, but it will be a lot of fun. The ladies at Needles in the Haymarket are very supportive and want to help their customers succeed in their projects. I've made friends with some of my fellow knitters who come to the shop to knit and socialize. It's like the shop has a built-in knitting/crocheting circle.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Voila!
My first knitting project is done! What a feeling of accomplishment! It took 13 days from start to finish and about a skein and a half of Encore Chunky light blue yarn. It's 5 feet long and was done in a knit three, purl three pattern for all but the ends, which are knit 4 purl 2 (or purl 2, knit 4, depending on which end you're looking at).
Binding off was not too difficult. I learned how in my first lesson and I went on YouTube and found a video to help refresh my memory. Then came hiding the ends, weaving them through the knitted stitches.
The scarf isn't perfect, but whose first knitting project is? There are some wacky stitches, especially toward the end I started with. Naturally, the stitches got more even as the scarf went on and my knitting experience grew by the day. I learned how to fix dropped stitches on my own, after visiting Needles in the Haymarket a couple of times and having someone there help me get out of whatever trouble I managed to get myself into. When I start learning the more advanced stuff like increases and decreases, I'm sure my wonderful knitting gurus will be there to bail me out of some even trickier trouble. At least, the trouble seems trickier to me now because it's the trouble I don't know (as opposed to the trouble I do know, like dropped stitches).
So, I'll have to take a one-day break from knitting tomorrow since I start my next lesson and next project on Thursday. It will be interesting to see what kind of needles and what kind of yarn they'll have me using. I want to try some with more than one color in it. I see all these colorful skeins at the shop and think they look so cool.
My Red Sox schooled the Marlins today, 9-0. Made for a good day to finish my first project.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Knit a row. Make a Mistake. Rip It all Out. Throw a Hissyfit. Start Over Again.
That title pretty much sums up what happened after I left the knitting shop and was left to my own devices. Don't get me wrong, I had a very good teacher. It's just that there was so much to learn in two hours (casting on, knitting, purling, and even binding off) that it was impossible to remember everything, especially how to fix a mistake.
I had gotten a pretty good start on my scarf when I left, but things went downhill from there. Once I got home, I decided to knit another row or two. Just a couple of stitches into the first row, something screwy happened that left me frowning and contemplating what I did wrong and how I could fix it and move on with the row. Alas, there was no moving on because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how that extra stitch got there. I put the knitting aside and waited a couple of hours.
When I went back to it later, I still couldn't figure it out, so I frantically searched YouTube for some troubleshooting videos for knitters in the rough. I found some and, as I tried to copy what they were doing as they were doing it, pressing pause constantly with whatever finger I could wrestle free, I became even more confused and frustrated then ever. But I was bound and determined to fix this thing before the night was over. Even if I had to rip the whole thing out and start over again, which I did. By that time, my brain was so addled I didn't trust myself to remember how to cast on, so I looked at some more YouTube videos and managed to cast on a super-tight row of long-tail stitches. So tight that I could barely separate them into threes to count out 24 of them.
My cast-on complete, I started with my first row. Wedging my 7 mm bamboo needle between the cast-on needle and the uber-tight stitches chewed up that needle like a gnawed-on pencil. How am I supposed to knit a whole friggin scarf like this, I mused in abject frustration and bewilderment. Of course, I managed to make an "unfixable" mistake, so it was back to the drawing board.
A couple of cast-ons and rip-outs later, I decided to "reduce" my scarf by half, at least until I got the whole knitting process down to where I could knit several rows without having to rip out. Less stitches per row means less opportunity to make a mistake, right? WRONG!!! I was still making mistakes left and right, to the point where I cut my row to six, but to no avail. Several hours and groans and sighs of frustration later, I threw my hands up and just cried, "I can't do it!" Determination be damned, I had to take a break.
It was close to midnight then and I had already forfeited a night of watching the Olympics to my learn-how-to-knit-or-die-trying cause. I was too wound-up to go to bed, so I watched an episode of The Amazing Race that I'd DVR-ed awhile back and it provided me enough distraction to calm me down. Still, determined to get something accomplished before I hit the hay, I got back on the computer and looked at some of the YouTube videos again, this time with my knitting needles put aside. I was going to watch the tutorials all the way through without trying to do it myself. They featured a young, early 20-something girl teaching a group of cheerful, attentive teenagers, smiling while holding their knitting needles and colorful swatches-in-progress. Somehow, the calming Zen vibes of the teen knitting cafe reached me through the computer screen and I was able to go to bed in a considerably less stressed state of mind than I was about two hours before.
The next day, I started fresh by casting on a much looser row of stitches. As worked my first knitting row, I counted after every stitch to make sure the total number of stitches on each needle was 24. 1 and 23, 2 and 22, 3 and 21, and so on and so forth. It was tedious and painstaking, but it kept me on track and slowed me down so I didn't make mistakes. I knitted about four rows, purled two, and then began my knit three stitches, purl three stitches pattern that goes on until the scarf is a few inches short of five feet long. When I get to that point, I will purl two rows, then knit four rows and then bind off.
Once I got the hang of knitting and purling, I found that I really, really liked it. It's much more relaxing and fun when you know what you're doing! When I ran into a snafu, a wonky stitch that I just couldn't fix, I just stopped there and went to Needles in the Haymarket the next day and had one of the kind, helpful ladies who work there help me out. Eventually, I learned how to fix yarnovers and how to "tink", which is knit spelled backwards. Tinking is undoing stitches. I got a crochet hook for fixing dropped stitches, though I still need some practice in recognizing a dropped stitch. I'm about 2/3 of the way done with my scarf and next week, I'll start on my next project: a shrug. Never really having heard of a shrug before learning to knit, I can't think of a good way to describe it, except it's kind of like a combination of a shawl and a vest.
Pictures of the scarf will be posted when it's finished.
I had gotten a pretty good start on my scarf when I left, but things went downhill from there. Once I got home, I decided to knit another row or two. Just a couple of stitches into the first row, something screwy happened that left me frowning and contemplating what I did wrong and how I could fix it and move on with the row. Alas, there was no moving on because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how that extra stitch got there. I put the knitting aside and waited a couple of hours.
When I went back to it later, I still couldn't figure it out, so I frantically searched YouTube for some troubleshooting videos for knitters in the rough. I found some and, as I tried to copy what they were doing as they were doing it, pressing pause constantly with whatever finger I could wrestle free, I became even more confused and frustrated then ever. But I was bound and determined to fix this thing before the night was over. Even if I had to rip the whole thing out and start over again, which I did. By that time, my brain was so addled I didn't trust myself to remember how to cast on, so I looked at some more YouTube videos and managed to cast on a super-tight row of long-tail stitches. So tight that I could barely separate them into threes to count out 24 of them.
My cast-on complete, I started with my first row. Wedging my 7 mm bamboo needle between the cast-on needle and the uber-tight stitches chewed up that needle like a gnawed-on pencil. How am I supposed to knit a whole friggin scarf like this, I mused in abject frustration and bewilderment. Of course, I managed to make an "unfixable" mistake, so it was back to the drawing board.
A couple of cast-ons and rip-outs later, I decided to "reduce" my scarf by half, at least until I got the whole knitting process down to where I could knit several rows without having to rip out. Less stitches per row means less opportunity to make a mistake, right? WRONG!!! I was still making mistakes left and right, to the point where I cut my row to six, but to no avail. Several hours and groans and sighs of frustration later, I threw my hands up and just cried, "I can't do it!" Determination be damned, I had to take a break.
It was close to midnight then and I had already forfeited a night of watching the Olympics to my learn-how-to-knit-or-die-trying cause. I was too wound-up to go to bed, so I watched an episode of The Amazing Race that I'd DVR-ed awhile back and it provided me enough distraction to calm me down. Still, determined to get something accomplished before I hit the hay, I got back on the computer and looked at some of the YouTube videos again, this time with my knitting needles put aside. I was going to watch the tutorials all the way through without trying to do it myself. They featured a young, early 20-something girl teaching a group of cheerful, attentive teenagers, smiling while holding their knitting needles and colorful swatches-in-progress. Somehow, the calming Zen vibes of the teen knitting cafe reached me through the computer screen and I was able to go to bed in a considerably less stressed state of mind than I was about two hours before.
The next day, I started fresh by casting on a much looser row of stitches. As worked my first knitting row, I counted after every stitch to make sure the total number of stitches on each needle was 24. 1 and 23, 2 and 22, 3 and 21, and so on and so forth. It was tedious and painstaking, but it kept me on track and slowed me down so I didn't make mistakes. I knitted about four rows, purled two, and then began my knit three stitches, purl three stitches pattern that goes on until the scarf is a few inches short of five feet long. When I get to that point, I will purl two rows, then knit four rows and then bind off.
Once I got the hang of knitting and purling, I found that I really, really liked it. It's much more relaxing and fun when you know what you're doing! When I ran into a snafu, a wonky stitch that I just couldn't fix, I just stopped there and went to Needles in the Haymarket the next day and had one of the kind, helpful ladies who work there help me out. Eventually, I learned how to fix yarnovers and how to "tink", which is knit spelled backwards. Tinking is undoing stitches. I got a crochet hook for fixing dropped stitches, though I still need some practice in recognizing a dropped stitch. I'm about 2/3 of the way done with my scarf and next week, I'll start on my next project: a shrug. Never really having heard of a shrug before learning to knit, I can't think of a good way to describe it, except it's kind of like a combination of a shawl and a vest.
Pictures of the scarf will be posted when it's finished.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Casting On...
Take a Red Sox fan, two needles, a skein or two of yarn, and voila--a new blog is born! Unlike its sister blog "Blogging while InSOXicated," this venture into the blogosphere is about my newfound addiction, in which I will happily indulge myself while I'm watching Red Sox games on TV.
Why knitting? A whole bunch of reasons:
1. It keeps my hands busy so I don't give into the temptation to chuck things at the TV when a Sox pitcher walks the bases loaded or a Sox batter grounds into an inning-ending double play.
2. It makes commercial breaks go by much faster.
3. My aunt is a knitter and when she came to visit me, I took her to my local knitting shop called "Needles in the Haymarket" I was intrigued by all the cool knitting action going on and before you know it, I was signing up for my first knitting class.
4. It's portable. You can do it anywhere in the house.
5. You can make really pretty stuff like sweaters, scarves, hats, shawls, shrugs, gloves, or whatever your heart desires and, what can I say, yarn fascinates me!
6. There's such a community of knitters out there, whether it be in the knit shop, on ravelry.com, or elsewhere in cyberspace. It can be either a solitary activity or a social one--whatever you're in the mood for.
So there you have it. Next blog will spin a yarn about the trials and tribulations of my first day (and night) of knitting. Now, it's time to stop talking and start stitching...
Kristin
Knitting streak at 9 days and counting.
Why knitting? A whole bunch of reasons:
1. It keeps my hands busy so I don't give into the temptation to chuck things at the TV when a Sox pitcher walks the bases loaded or a Sox batter grounds into an inning-ending double play.
2. It makes commercial breaks go by much faster.
3. My aunt is a knitter and when she came to visit me, I took her to my local knitting shop called "Needles in the Haymarket" I was intrigued by all the cool knitting action going on and before you know it, I was signing up for my first knitting class.
4. It's portable. You can do it anywhere in the house.
5. You can make really pretty stuff like sweaters, scarves, hats, shawls, shrugs, gloves, or whatever your heart desires and, what can I say, yarn fascinates me!
6. There's such a community of knitters out there, whether it be in the knit shop, on ravelry.com, or elsewhere in cyberspace. It can be either a solitary activity or a social one--whatever you're in the mood for.
So there you have it. Next blog will spin a yarn about the trials and tribulations of my first day (and night) of knitting. Now, it's time to stop talking and start stitching...
Kristin
Knitting streak at 9 days and counting.
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