The Shaping Of Things To Come

Sorry it's been so long between blogs. I was doing a lot of projects as gifts and I didn't want their lucky (or so I hope) recipients to run across this blog and see what I was making them. This next project is for myself, so I can blog all I want about it.

I found the pattern for this project here. It is a sleeveless top with Bernat brand bamboo yarn. Yes, bamboo. No, it's not wooden or in the form of long shoots. It's actually very soft and silky. It's a bulky-grade yarn and the pattern calls for size 10 (6 mm) needles. Since I already had that size, it was one less thing I had to buy. Finding six skeins of this stuff in the same dye lot was a challenge, but I managed to scare up six of the light pink "Lotus" color. It wasn't my first choice --that would have been the darker pink "Rosehip" color--but it's still a very pretty shade. If you mix dye lots within a project, you might get some unevenness in the color and that would look weird.

So, I looked on Ravelry to see if anyone else had tried this pattern and what I found out might save me from a less-than-desirable result. Most of the knitters who attempted to make this top found that it was too short and ended up having to add a couple of inches. Also, there were comments about it being boxy or curling up too much on the ends. The curling, fortunately has a relatively easy fix: change the pattern to rib for the bottom 2-4 inches. Since I will be lengthening the piece, I'll do those additional inches in rib. They may also be in a different color, seeing that I'm not sure there are any more of that dye lot available. I'm thinking of going with a skein of yellow to go with the pink. Blue and green might be too overpowering for that shade of pink, but the yellow, as long as it's not too bright, could complement it nicely. If not yellow, then maybe the darker shade of pink as an accent color.

The "boxiness" might be a little more challenging to fix. I chose this pattern for its simplicity because this is my first foray into making clothing and I didn't want it to be super-complicated and easy to screw up. However, I want it to be flattering and something I actually want to wear. I'll have to do some more research on shaping and how I can do it without making the pattern too complex.

Change of Plans

Out: Soft boucle poncho
In: Satin poncho

After much struggle to determine the origin of phantom stitches and not being able to see my stitches clearly, I ditched the soft boucle poncho and started on a new one, with yarn that's easier to work with because, you know, it resembles "normal" yarn.

So, I found a pattern for another poncho, the Satin Poncho It has a kind of lacy look and includes basic lace knitting techniques to create holes in the fabric, such as yarnovers and the slip, knit, pass over decrease. I'm using Bernat Satin yarn in the Teal color and size 8 (5mm) circular needles. I have about 4 inches of it done so far and it looks really pretty. This one, of course, is for my aunt, but I may end up liking it so much I want to make one for myself.

As for the soft boucle, I'll keep the yarn in my stash and maybe try working with it again when I'm more experienced.

Ay Friggin' Caramba!

Oh crap! I'm knitting a poncho that is done as a long rectangle and then seamed after bind-off and I just discovered, about 6 or 7-odd rows late, that I have 2 extra stitches. As a result of said extra stitches, one side of my rectangle slants off in a direction that makes the rows after the slant begins slightly longer. It ain't pretty. Being as this is only my third project and I've been knitting for only about 6 weeks, I can't for the life of me figure out where the stitches were added. I've ripped back about three rows while the work is still on the needles and it's taking me forever to do so. The idea of taking the piece OFF the needles and ripping back that way gives me the heebie-jeebies because I can see myself starting and not being able to stop until the whole dang thing is frogged. Not. What. I. Want. To. Do. This yarn is a nubby boucle yarn and it's not always easy to see when and where I screw up.

Now I'm usually able to fix my mistakes pretty easily with my handy little crochet hook, but this one's a doozy. Right now, I have three options:

a) Keep on ripping back on the needles, despite the painful tedium of the process and not knowing exactly where the phantom stitches came from.
b) Seek help from a higher authority (read: just about anybody at Needles in the Haymarket)
c) Frog it all. Find a cat. Throw him two skeins of soft boucle yarn to chase around. Make shawl or poncho out of something else, more closely resembling normal yarn.

I'm most inclined to choose option b because, despite the difficulty I'm having with it, I like how the soft boucle looks knitted up (when it's done right!). So, it's to the yarn shop I go, once I kick this cold. No pix with this post, but I hope you got a kick out of reading the comedy of my errors.

A Shrug is Born

Second knitting project: complete! The shrug was a good second project because it was easy to knit, yet it introduced me to the all-important knitting techniques of increasing and decreasing. The first 7 1/2 inches and the last 7 1/2 inches were knit two, purl two (K2 P2) ribbing. The middle 16 inches were K1 P1, resulting in an hourglass shape before seaming. Seaming is exactly what it sounds like: creating seams in the garment by using yarn to sew two edges together. For this project, I folded the hourglass-shaped fabric in half and sewed up the sides until I got to where the ribbing changed to K1 P1 from K2 P2. As I was knitting this project and looking at the seaming instructions on the pattern, I was initially confused as to how folding it in half and sewing partway up the sides was going to result in this shrug (or shrudge, as my dad, being completely unfamiliar with the concept of a shrug, called it. "How's your shrudge coming?") After both Mom and Dad looked at the pattern and were confused themselves as to how this would not turn out to be a large, ridiculous hat with two holes on the sides, Dad finally came to the correct conclusion that you put your arms through the holes and pull the top section of ribbing over your head. Seeing that visual/spatial reasoning is not my strong suit, it took another pair of eyes to figure that out for me!


Increasing and decreasing were an adventure. The decreasing came first and for that I had to knit two stitches together as if they were one stitch. Pretty self-explanatory, right? I didn't realize how hard it would be to get that second stitch on the needle! Increasing, or adding those stitches lost in the decreasing process, involved knitting both in the front and back of the stitch. That felt really awkward to do for the first 20 or so stitches, then it got a little easier.

The picture on the top left was taken by my knitting friend Marlyss at Needles in the Haymarket. What's with the TP in the background, you might ask. The answer: It was too dang bright outside and the shop has windows both in front and in the back. The glare from the sunlight made it hard to take a picture anywhere but the bathroom, so there I am, modeling my new shrug, which was in loud contrast to my purple and white shirt.

Next up, a poncho for my aunt's belated birthday present. I'm using Bernat Soft Boucle yarn in teal twist. The yarn is nubby and can be tricky to work with since it's harder to see and fix mistakes. However, I'm determined to learn how to knit with all different kinds of yarn and I think it will look really pretty when I'm finished.

Project #2 is Underway

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.

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.

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.