Adventures in Knitting

I first learned to knit as a child. My Mum was a knitter, as were my Grandmas. My projects were nothing fancy - when I say I learned to knit, I mean I could cast on, do the knit stitch, do the purl stitch, and cast off. No increases, no decreases, and I as far as I can tell I never even learnt how to switch between knit and purl in the same row! So I made, to my recollection, a scarf or two, and some squares for charity blankets, all in garter or stockinette stitch. And then - nothing. It wasn’t really my thing. Cross-stitch was my preferred type of needlework, and I’ve stuck with that (some very lean periods aside) ever since.

But now I have picked up the knitting needles again. (As if I don’t already have enough craft supplies waiting to be used!) It’s difficult to pin down exactly why. I think it started with blogs. I subscribe to the blogs of a couple of friends who knit, and I kept seeing the lovely items they produced. I saw all the beautiful yarn they were working with - and the colours and blends and resulting patterns are definitely something that appeal to me (in the same way my scrapbook papers do). On its own though, that wasn’t enough.

Then a new social group started up at work - a Craft Guild. A weekly lunchtime meeting for all types of crafters, of course I had to join. My “first” craft these days is definitely scrapbooking, but that’s not exactly suited to a short session or very portable. Card-making is slightly better, but without a pre-prepared kit, still requires a lot of “stuff”! I settled on cross-stitch to take with me. I hadn’t worked on any for a little while, and have plenty of partially completed projects. It’s self-contained and compact, so it works perfectly. The only downside is that, after sewing for an hour in a social setting (chatting definitely allowed!) I really didn’t feel as though I’d made any progress at all. At the same time, several other members were knitting. I started to feel the pull. Then one week, someone was working on some fingerless mittens. I immediately thought “I could really use some of those - and I bet that’s a good beginner’s project” and went home wanting to knit.

Though Carrie I was aware of Ravelry, *the* place to go online for knitters. I promptly signed up, and spent an age browsing the site. I found a pattern for some mittens that I thought I could manage. Then added dozens more patterns for assorted things to my queue or my favourites. All despite not having knitted a stitch in probably more that 15 years! I looked for details of local yarn shops (or lack of), and browsed an online shop or two. I absorbed a ton of jargon, and figured out what most of it meant. Finally, at the weekend I got DH to take me to Hobbycraft to get what I needed to start. I was lucky enough to have inherited my Grandma’s large roll of knitting needles - which have sat in a drawer unused ever since - so all I really had to buy was a single ball of wool, and some tapestry needles for finishing.

Back home, I had to re-learn the actual techniques from scratch. Ravelry wasn’t as much help here, so I found some online tutorials, including some with videos. I cast on using the long-tail method, which is definitely not what I used as a child. Then I started knitting my first mitten. It was going well enough, until I had to switch from knit to purl in the same row. Back to the internet tutorials to find out what to do! Then on a few more rows - and a dropped stitch. Only I didn’t realise until a row later, so I couldn’t just pick it up. I tried frogging back to just before the error, but couldn’t manage to get the stitches back on the needle without unravelling them further. That’s a skill/technique I suspect I will need to master before long but I was impatient, and not very far in, so I frogged the whole thing and started again. Much better.

I completed about half of the first mitten that weekend, then took it with me to my next Craft Guild at work. It was ideal - perfectly portable, simple enough to work on whilst chatting without losing my concentration, and I made visible progress so felt like I’d achieved something. Only one problem - which shows how little I actually know about what I’m doing! The pattern I’m working on has two sections of stockinette stitch. I didn’t know what that meant, but the pattern told me, so it was ok. Except I somehow misread “knit one row purl one row” as “knit one purl one row” and didn’t realise my mistake until I got to the second section and read back to check what to do! So instead of stockinette, I ended up with 1x1 rib. To fix it would have meant essentially starting over, so I decided to live with it and just do the second one to match. That evening, I finished it in short order. I made what is probably a horrible mess of seaming (I was definitely improvising this bit), but it hasn’t fallen apart yet. In the event, I quite like the “modification” I made - the rib on the wrist section gives it a nice grip. After a bit of a break (busy weekend) the second came together quite nicely.

Waffle Stitch Fingerless Gloves 1
Originally uploaded by jennypitcairn

After this, who knows what next. I really want to knit socks, something about that distinctly appeals to me. But I need to vastly improve my skills and knowledge before I get to that point. So the adventure starts here!