I am bound and determined to be a better blogger. I've been reading a lot of other's blogs, fiber related of course, and they make it seem so easy....a few random thoughts about this and that, a couple of pictures of work in progress (ok, in my case that could be the size of an encyclopedia volume)....i could do that, right? i really like the idea of a blog being like a journal. i go thru phases of journaling, i have at least a dozed of those really pretty books with lined pages, mostly only half used! so here is to the rebirth of my blogging/journaling - YEAH! So, to keep it related to yarn i'll start with this....
Something OTHER than crocheting?
After about a 14 month delay, i am once again trying my hand at knitting. Blaspheme you say? Well, i've got barrels and barrels of yarn laying around (really, i'm not kidding...just ask my husband and kids!) so anything to use it is fair game in my book. Anyway...last January (2008, so i guess technically that's not LAST January but a YEAR ago January) I made two New Year's resolutions 1. Learn to knit, 2. Unravel all the sweaters i bought the previous March (2007) when they were all $1 at the Marklund Thrift Store before buying any more at the 2008 March sale.
Number 2, well that was just unrealistic. You see in between the barrels of yarn are bags of sweaters yearning for new life. Besides once you really get underway with a resolution its the end of January and February is short to begin with and 2008 was a leap year...so march (and the new sale) came up VERY quickly. I did make some progress but not enough to call myself even marginally successful with it given the number of new sweaters acquired. However, to my credit, this year I stayed completely out of the thrift store until i was 100% certain all sweaters were hidden from plain view!
So what happend with resolution #1? Having had this thought that i would love to knit a pair of socks in my head for quite a while i had purchased several pairs of knitting needles from my favorite thrift store on one of my sweater excursions. I got out my little $1 version of Knitting for Dummies and turned to the Continental Knitting chapter. Being a Crocheter, mom told me it was much easier to learn that rather than the way EVERYONE ELSE knits! Yep, Mom's right again. (boy I hope I'm so much right when my kids are grown) So on to the Knit stitch. Pretty straight forward, I can do this. I started with about 6 inches across on my size 10 needles. After about 2 inches of that i was bored (later to find out this is called Garter stitch). On to the Purl stitch. About an inch into serveral rows of purls it looked remarkably similar to a bunch of knit stitches . BORING! and this doesn't look like ANY knitting that i've ever seen. where are all the stitches that look like little V's? that smooth, draping texture that every sweater i've ever worn has? Oh, that's the next chapter, the stockinette stitch. the problem arose when i found out my purls were twisted wrong...hmmm. nobody who knows knitting could figure out what i was doing wrong (becuz they all knit the OTHER way). not that it was awful but i could tell they were tighter than the knits and once i was shown they were twisted it REALLY bothered me. the perfectionist in me just couldn't tolerate it. "darn you knitting!" "into the closet with you!!!"
sigh, the story eventually has a happy ending but that's another day....
God Bless your stitches,
nance
