Hey, knitters,
Okay, this is why having Tarma as the co-professor is good. She's good at just sitting down and posting. I always plan on it and then either get sidetracked or dither around trying to find the right way to phrase something.
Anyway, I wanted to comment on a couple things already said, and then add my own tales of knitting... whatever.
First off, Tarma, this is why you don't have such long gaps between projects. Just think of all that potential knitting time just down the drain! And we should really sort out this whole backwards cast on thing, just so it's a useful skill. 'Cause, as great as it is to do things the "right" way, it's really all about the result. If the result is what you want and/or are happy with, rock on.
Now, Lily, I've seen your first assignment, and you're doing great. Don't be afraid of little mistakes here and there, either. For instance, the stitch we learn in Lesson 4 (the bramble stitch) is the first non-knit or purl stitch I ever did, and it was used as a block in an Aran sampler afghan. I distinctly remember working on the square one night (
all night and into mid-morning, actually). I was more than half-way done when I noticed that two of my brambles very early on were smaller than they should be. I decided to let them be, and now it's... kind of my favorite square in this 20-square afghan. In fact, when I was piecing it together, I made sure to put it at the "top" of the blanket, 'cause it's my special square. So, you know, learn to embrace little fumbles.
Oh, and I know the washcloths not being exactly square can be annoying, but I did have a reason not to cover what to do if you need to adjust the size a bit (a process called blocking, by the way). I thought, "Well, if these are supposed to be practical items, they don't
really need to be square, right? So just let them be what they are. Also, it'll give you something to cover in a second class!" But that's great that you went and found out on your own.
*waves at Gert* Good to see you still hanging around here. Let us know how your further adventures in knitting come along.
Now, for a couple of Cosmo knitting tales, which all revolve around the same pattern.
A friend of mine asked me to recreate this capelet she has, which was a fun challenge. I pulled it off (yay!), but the yarn I used to make my prototype was a bit thicker than the original, so my version was bigger. So, I got thinner yarn to try again. (When you've got patterns where size is important, even two worsted weight yarns might not substitute well for each other, which is what happened in my case. Such is the fun of yarn.)
Everything went well for the remake -- its size is a much better match to the original -- and I seamed the two main pieces together, and then I knit the several inches of trim onto it. Nothing too unusual. Except, I noticed several days after I finished the thing that I'd
seamed the main pieces together inside out, and because the knitted trim isn't reversible, I couldn't do anything about it. Unless I wanted to unravel it all and reseam and reknit and refringe, which... well, I don't want to do.
I don't think anyone would really notice that it's wrong, unless they're really looking for it, and it doesn't look
bad, but... oh, boy, was my face red!
Also, I'm amused how we all like different sorts of needles. I've never found my nickel needles to be particularly clicky, except maybe when they're dangling and I'm not actually knitting. Working with them, they're pretty quiet. And it's funny, when working on the capelet's trim (which ends up being something like 244 stitches in the round), because I don't have a long enough circular needle, I use two circulars to get the full circumference. As it happens, I've used my sort of try-out set of Knitpicks interchangeable needles -- I bought size 7 in nickel, wood, and acryllic -- and I always
dread working on the non-nickel needle! The others aren't slick enough for me. But, you know, that's what I love about knitting. No one uses the needles in the same way as anyone else.
Anyway, I'm going to catch up on this week's
Glee and work on my sock (so I can then do another capelet). But feel free to talk about how Assignment 2 is coming along.
), I've not picked up knitting needles in at least a couple of years. I'd knitted 'some' before, mostly, again, because of Professor Mott's persuasive abilities, but I'd call myself, at best, a neophyte knitter.
).
