Labor Day Knitters

Labor day weekend has arrived and with it, we hope there is going to be some rain.  We have, after 55 days over 100F had the temperatures to drop into the high 80s and low 90s.  I noticed the road crews were back to work during the day a little.  They say in Texas we have two seasons:  Summer and Road Construction.  That has certainly been true this summer.  Labor Day weekend always means so much no matter where I've lived or what the seasons have been like.  The first thing it means is no more white clothing or shoes and all the cowboys change from straw hats to felt or pelt hats. The biggest thing about Labor day weekend is that it has always represented the end of summer, albeit informally.

My Family and I are going to stay with friends this weekend.  I have been asked to teach a couple people how to knit.  I was flattered and I told them I was a newish knitter but I thought casting on, knit and purl, YO, etc could be easily taught by a noob.  Then I started thinking....how did I learn to knit? I can tell you it was not from making swatches and gauges, phoowee on that!

I taught myself to knit which has numerous downfalls in and of itself.  I started with a small pamphlet style book that was really great and from which I made my first hat and scarf.  They turned out nice.  It gave great advice so I've bought 2 of these books to give to my friends this weekend as well as 2 sets of 6.5mm 10" (25mm) needles. I found mine which I've had since I was 14 (given to me by my Aunt Olga). I also bought several skeins of the yarn it suggests, which I didn't always do and which caused numerous beginners mistakes. 

I also found that U-Tube has really good tutorials on things the book didn't show me like how to pick and knit stitches.  Now to those of you that have been knitting a long time, how did you learn to pick up and knit?  That was one of the most frustrating things I have ever encountered.  What the heck does that mean, I wondered through clenched teeth! My first attempt came with the Antje Gillingham book Knitting Circles Around Socks. Holy buckets, Bat Man!!!  She has fantastic instruction, loads of pictures on how to do everything...except "pick up and knit."  Arrrrrggghhh!  OK I survived the pick up and knit.  My first socks turned out really great in spite of me.

I've put the things to teach with in a bag, I've packed up what I'm taking to work on, what else do I need?  I am pondering...

I hope you all have a nice end of summer no matter where you live.  I'll be watching the kids in the pool and NASCAR racing and, of course, I'll be knitting.

A Productive Weekend

I've finished the baby surprise jacket (BSJ) originally patterned by Elizabeth Zimmerman.  Just needs buttons.  I did the version with a collar:  I picked the stitches from the inside the first time so when I'd finished the seam showed.  I pulled it all out and added the collar again so the seam is on the outside.  Looks better this way. 

I also finished a pair of cotton socks that I was trying.  These took less than a week.  So easy.  I selected Antje Gillingham's chunky, cozy cotton socks from Knitting Circles Around Socks. 

Wanted to try working with some specialty "yarn."  I bought a pom-pom, an eyelash and Patons Bohemian, which looks like velour or something.  We watched the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday so I had lots of time to fiddle with these.  I didn't actually do anything with the Bohemian.  So far I'm just admiring it. 

Pom-Pom:  Cast-on using e-style.  I tried regular and it was a little lumpy.

Eyelash is really easy to use.  No Problem.

I also bought a book this past winter (I love books and have bought far too many of them) called Mastering Color Knitting by Melissa Leapman.  I have been trying a few samples.  So far its been hit and miss.  I actually only bought this to learn stranding, intarsia and double knitting.  The stranding did seem to get better with a bit of practice.  The first checker board was too tight and bunched up a bit.  The second is flat and smooth but the stitches look uneven with tighter and looser chains. I actually bought this book so that eventually I could do some work in another book that assumes you already know of this colorwork.  Since I didn't, I thought I'd better learn.

I haven't tried the intarsia yet but I did buy some yarn to give it go with from my local Wooly Ewe store.

I did try the double knitting.  This was a challenge.  I knit with my working yarn in my left hand.  This is called Continental style.  I kept getting the yarn twisted.  Since double knitting requires two working yarns, I thought well maybe I should hold one working yarn in my right hand and one in my left.  I had to then practice knitting with the working yarn in my right hand, English style.  You can see from the sample that I twisted the knitting a few times because I was concentrating on the yarn instead of what I was doing. The double knitted piece, small as it is took me for-bleepin-ever to do.  Of course, I shouldn't have used a yarn that is so difficult to work with, lol. Oh, wonderful, the picture is so bad you can't tell how I goofed it up!!!

The best way to learn anything new, I've discovered is to just cast-on and try it out.  I have a whole basket of failures from the past year.  Some of these will, no doubt end up there.