Knitting Page Archives: July 2002

July 31, 2002. Wahoo! Finished the socks!

July 29, 2002. Why does it seem like these socks are taking me forever? Shouldn't I have been done by now? Sigh. I've been working on them for almost a month! It took me about three weeks to knit my raglan sweater (pictures coming soon of that, I swear...just have to finish this roll of film).

July 25, 2002. I just received my copy of Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. What a cool book. I think this will be a good way to get me to branch out and start thinking about my knitting on its own, and not just following a pattern. My favorite cookbooks are the ones that have "make it your own" options at the end of each recipe, so this type of knitting book is right up my alley.

July 24, 2002. Two heels turned, moving right along!

I just met up with Melissa! We met at a yarn shop between our houses, and it was completely fun. Melissa (as you might expect) is really, really nice. Melissa bought some eyelash yarn to make a scarf, and some really pretty shimmery variegated stuff for a shawl. I got some sock yarn (Lang Jawoll Jacquard Superwash) and a few knitting magazines. I'm sure she thinks there was some special super-gravity field around me, because I kept dropping stuff. But it's not that easy to juggle my huge messenger bag, two magazines, and four skeins of sock yarn.

Anyway, I'm so glad I was able to meet up with her, and we're going to try to meet someplace and have a mini stitch and bitch. I've got to email Clara and see if she'll be in Portland anytime soon, since three knitters make a veritable horde.

July 17, 2002. I made a journal to keep track of my knitting. Go see!

Who knew that Justine Bateman was a knitter? Go Mallory!

July 14, 2002. Look at the cute mini sock I made! I took a class yesterday where we made this one, tiny sock, just to get the idea of how all the sock shaping works. It was a lot of fun to figure it all out, and also to have the instant gratification of completing this wee bit of footwear.

But. But. For the 14-thousandth time, I was knitting wrong. This is what I get from learning to knit from a book. When I knit the hooded baby sweater, I was purling correctly [or not...see below], but twisting my knit stitches in two ways: I was knitting through the back loop, and throwing the yarn over the needle instead of under. Who knows what I did when I knit the hooded baby towel, since you can't really see the stitches. When I knit my 3-4 sleeve sweater, I had corrected the way I throw the yarn, but was still knitting through the back loop. You'd think I would have figured it out when I looked at how to K2tog, and was all surprised to see the direction the needle goes (i.e., properly). Anyway, so yesterday, in the class, the teacher saw that I was knitting wrong, and showed me what to do. Sheesh. Anyone out there who's teaching themselves to knit should go to their local yarn store, at some point early on, to make sure everything is going in the right direction. I had already started on a pair of socks, and I couldn't stand knowing that I was still knitting wrong, so I went ahead and started knitting correctly. Of course it's incredibly obvious where I started doing it right. Suddenly the stitches are all neat and happy. I'm going to keep going with the socks, and consider it some sort of lesson. I don't think you'll really be able to tell if you're standing up and looking at the socks down on my feet.

I'm really glad I learned how to knit correctly before I started on my Rowan sweater!

Postscript (one hour later): Dammit, I was purling wrong too! I tried to knit a straight swatch for something else, and knitting into my purl stitches was nearly impossible, so I figured something must be wrong. I was wrapping the yarn around the needle the wrong way. I guess my lesson here is to pay more attention when I'm learning something from a book. And that I am someone who really learns better when I am shown, in person, how to do something, especially if it's a semi-complicated hands-on skill like knitting. I've been knitting wrong (in all kinds of ways!) for almost a year.