I always forget about this place. It's hard enough keeping up a regular blog, let alone a specialty one. I guess because it's hard to separate knitting from the rest of my life, since knitting is such a big part of my life (weird as that may sound). But I want to make more of an effort at least to record things here, projects I've made and such, just to have it.
Right now I'm working on: a scarf, two blankets, and a cardigan. Blankets are for some of the MANY people I know who've gotten married this year. There are a lot of them, and I've been trying to knit blankets for all of them. I could do something easier and quicker, like placemats or towels, but I really love knitting blankets. I love having blankets, too, so I sort of just assume everyone does. Even if it gets stuck in a closet somewhere and never sees the light of day, it'll be there for that day when they need an extra bit of warmth. I still treasure the first package I ever got in college - an afghan my grandmother made for me. I actually don't know if it was knit or crocheted - I think she crocheted a lot more than she knit, but it sort of looks like knit stitches. It's hard to tell though. In any case, I love it. I really wish I had been more into knitting while she was alive. I didn't start until my sophomore year in college, I think, and even then it wasn't nearly to the degree I knit now. She died when I was a senior, and I probably only saw her a couple of times in person in the interim, so I never really got a chance to bond with her over that. But that's the way life goes, I guess. At least I can keep it going, though I can't glean pearls of crafting wisdom from her.
Well that went off on an unexpected tangent. But that's ok. You know, I'm just so very very thankful that I have knitting. Throughout my life there have been lots of things that I pick up, enjoy for a little while, and then let go of for no good reason. (Violining comes to mind. I really regret not keeping up with that.) But knitting has weaved itself around my heart (ha, get it?), and I don't think it's ever leaving. And thank God for that. It's funny - I don't really appreciate how good at it I am (please understand I'm saying this in a modest way, because I know there's still so much about knitting I don't know) until I get around other people who knit occasionally. For me, I just taught myself to knit and I was off and running, and I've never really struggled with it or had many mishaps or difficulties. So I can make some really pretty things. I mean, I still don't know how to do much with multiple colors, and I certainly have not yet gotten up the courage - or desire, really - to start designing my own patterns, but I have yet to meet a pattern that I can't pretty easily figure out. It just really works for me. It works well with the way my mind thinks. I take it for granted sometimes, and expect that everyone should be able to pick it up that easily, so it's no big deal what I can do. (Really, it's all just a matter of following the instructions.) But then I get together with other people who knit as a hobby, and they're often surprised by what I can do.
Ok, that probably all just sounded incredibly prideful and braggy. It's not how I mean it. Anyone who knows me knows how much I dislike admitting that I'm good at anything. It's not about me, though, it's all God. He really gave me this gift of being able to create beautiful things with my hands. Practical things. Warm, cozy things. Oh, how excited I am for fall, winter, colder weather! Snuggling in around bunches of blankets, wrapping myself in mounds of scarves, throwing a deliciously warm hat over my head. Knitters love winter weather. I am no exception. I may have been known to knit blankets during a ridiculously hot DC summer, but knitting in winter is just so perfect. And it may seem silly to associate God with knitting, but I know that I couldn't do it without him having given me the skills to do it, the mind to easily adapt to knitting lingo and patterns and symbols, the heart to embrace it more and more every day - and to want to spread that love to everyone else!
Boy oh boy, am I ever and always thankful for this craft.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Poor, neglected blog
I haven't written in this thing in almost a year. A YEAR! Just what do I think I was doing? (Oh, maybe studying for comps, then taking comps, then finishing up my master's degree, then moving home...after that, no excuses, buddy.) One thing's for sure - I was doing a lot of knitting. In that time, I finally acquired myself a set of nice interchangeable needles, and lo, it was love. I've knit several blankets. Some shawls. Hats. Mittens. Scarves. Etc. My yarn stash has reached epic proportions (especially with a recently-acquired box or two of enough yarn to make several blankets I have planned) (one of which I've already possibly scrapped, but am using the yarn for a different blanket, with some sadness, though, because it was originally going to be a pattern I've been really wanting to do for over a year now). I have a yarn swift and a real nostepinne, both of which are vast improvements over my previous method of "loop the yarn around my knees and use part of an old wrapping paper cardboard tube". Though I'd be lying if I said I immediately, or even as yet, got rid of that old wrapping paper card board tube. It was quite good to me there for awhile. And that tube itself was an improvement over my previous method of wrapping the yarn around three or four of my bigger-sized double pointed needles (which was, in its own time, an improvement over using several pens held together).
Ah, growth.
So here I am, wanting to write about knitting, because it's one of the greatest things in my life (well, to an extent, and with some caveats). But I do love it, and I have a greater appreciation for it with each new stitch I learn, each new project I start - and hopefully finish.
Right now, I'm working on that previously-mentioned unplanned blanket. Here's the story: I was knitting a blanket for a friend of mine who got married last year. What can I say, I really am thankful there's a year-long rule for getting people wedding presents. I started it in November, but that was around the time I was also working on a present that was going to be a definite Christmas present (I had the idea of giving this wedding present by Christmas, but it's hard to knit two blankets simultaneously for one event when you can't knit multiple hours a day and still be a functioning human). Thus, the definite Christmas present took priority, and thus here we are, almost in February, and the other blanket isn't yet finished. Last weekend I was looking to be done with it. I felt it was pretty well long enough, and so all I had to do was finish the rows of pattern repeat, and then to the bind-off - which is a different method than I've ever done, since this whole blanket has an i-cord edging around it as you go. But all of a sudden, I couldn't stand how narrow it was. It's fine for, say, a twin bed, and I personally am in love with it, but if I'm going to make it that long, shouldn't I make it wide enough for a bigger bed? These are the thoughts that began to plague me. Of course, it'd be fine for a couch afghan, which is really what I typically intend these things to be. (It takes a lot of yarn to make a blanket wide enough and long enough for a non-twin bed.) But it just didn't feel good enough to me. I am my own harshest critic, always, but I want these things to be loved.
So, despite the fact that I had purchased this yarn earlier in the year with the express purpose of being for this particular friend, I started wavering. And then I dug into the stash of yarn I just bought for other blankets for other friends, and started up a new blanket. And now here I am, a week later, ten inches done on the new one, and the other one still waiting to be finished. I had a brilliant idea of another friend who I think would enjoy and appreciate the not-wide-enough blanket, and I'm loving the new mostly-simple pattern I've got going on this blanket, but now I'll have to figure out something else for the friend who was intended to get the yarn I'm now using...we shall see...
But the new pattern! So, the pattern I was going to use with this yarn was a complicated one, with lots of cables and different stitches going on. I anticipated it taking awhile. And I do still want to do it one of these days. On my desk at work sometime the second week of January, a book showed up (with a card). 400 Knitting Stitches. It's one of the best things I've gotten, partially because it was so utterly unexpected. (Apparently receiving gifts is one of my love languages.) Immediately I began looking through it, and wanted to try All The Patterns. And I still do. But I found a fairly simple one, that's easy to turn into an afghan, and I adapted it slightly, added an edging around it, and here I am, still enjoying it. But it was an interesting start - I had the basic of the pattern repeat, but I had to make it work for the 256 stitches I cast on. Not that it's hard to do, since you just take the number of stitches they tell you to use per repeat, and multiply so it's wide enough for what you want. And then add stitches for the edging. I actually did a swatch this time! I never do that, but I wanted to make sure there weren't any kinks in the pattern before I knit 64 inches and several rows of it only to discover some problem. (The worst part about afghans, for me, is casting on all those stitches. I only want to have to do it once, so no room for miscounting or error!)
Well, as luck would have it, I didn't adapt quite correctly. On the very first row. (Which, after having done the bottom edge, meant I had already knit eight rows.) I am a perfectionist. I don't let myself make mistakes. If I notice a mistake in my knitting, I do what I can to take it out, much to my own detriment sometimes. Occasionally I'll let it slide if it's not too egregious, but usually, I can't stand it. So when I realized I hadn't done the first row right (which I didn't notice until I started the third), I had a few options: take out two rows of knitting (meaning over 500 stitches), which is never an appealing thing to do; let it slide and accept that it would just look wonky at the bottom of the blanket - also not too thrilled by that one; or continue with the third row, dropping the offensive stitches when I got to those ones so I could fix them as I went. I chose option three. It meant it took me a long time to get that third row done, but I managed to fix it so it looked fairly normal. I'm still pretty new at this "dropping stitches when you get to them" business rather than just ripping back and re-doing them, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Of course, I then noticed several rows later that there was one I had missed, but by that point it would have been just too much work to drop down that many rows and manage to stay within the pattern. So, this blanket has an imperfection. An obvious one, if you're looking for it.
That's the good thing about knitting for non-knitters, though - usually they're not looking for it.
Anyway. That was a really long post with lots of writing and utterly lacking in pictures. Terrible re-start to my knitting blog. I'll try to do better next time (which hopefully will be sometime sooner than a year away...)
Ah, growth.
So here I am, wanting to write about knitting, because it's one of the greatest things in my life (well, to an extent, and with some caveats). But I do love it, and I have a greater appreciation for it with each new stitch I learn, each new project I start - and hopefully finish.
Right now, I'm working on that previously-mentioned unplanned blanket. Here's the story: I was knitting a blanket for a friend of mine who got married last year. What can I say, I really am thankful there's a year-long rule for getting people wedding presents. I started it in November, but that was around the time I was also working on a present that was going to be a definite Christmas present (I had the idea of giving this wedding present by Christmas, but it's hard to knit two blankets simultaneously for one event when you can't knit multiple hours a day and still be a functioning human). Thus, the definite Christmas present took priority, and thus here we are, almost in February, and the other blanket isn't yet finished. Last weekend I was looking to be done with it. I felt it was pretty well long enough, and so all I had to do was finish the rows of pattern repeat, and then to the bind-off - which is a different method than I've ever done, since this whole blanket has an i-cord edging around it as you go. But all of a sudden, I couldn't stand how narrow it was. It's fine for, say, a twin bed, and I personally am in love with it, but if I'm going to make it that long, shouldn't I make it wide enough for a bigger bed? These are the thoughts that began to plague me. Of course, it'd be fine for a couch afghan, which is really what I typically intend these things to be. (It takes a lot of yarn to make a blanket wide enough and long enough for a non-twin bed.) But it just didn't feel good enough to me. I am my own harshest critic, always, but I want these things to be loved.
So, despite the fact that I had purchased this yarn earlier in the year with the express purpose of being for this particular friend, I started wavering. And then I dug into the stash of yarn I just bought for other blankets for other friends, and started up a new blanket. And now here I am, a week later, ten inches done on the new one, and the other one still waiting to be finished. I had a brilliant idea of another friend who I think would enjoy and appreciate the not-wide-enough blanket, and I'm loving the new mostly-simple pattern I've got going on this blanket, but now I'll have to figure out something else for the friend who was intended to get the yarn I'm now using...we shall see...
But the new pattern! So, the pattern I was going to use with this yarn was a complicated one, with lots of cables and different stitches going on. I anticipated it taking awhile. And I do still want to do it one of these days. On my desk at work sometime the second week of January, a book showed up (with a card). 400 Knitting Stitches. It's one of the best things I've gotten, partially because it was so utterly unexpected. (Apparently receiving gifts is one of my love languages.) Immediately I began looking through it, and wanted to try All The Patterns. And I still do. But I found a fairly simple one, that's easy to turn into an afghan, and I adapted it slightly, added an edging around it, and here I am, still enjoying it. But it was an interesting start - I had the basic of the pattern repeat, but I had to make it work for the 256 stitches I cast on. Not that it's hard to do, since you just take the number of stitches they tell you to use per repeat, and multiply so it's wide enough for what you want. And then add stitches for the edging. I actually did a swatch this time! I never do that, but I wanted to make sure there weren't any kinks in the pattern before I knit 64 inches and several rows of it only to discover some problem. (The worst part about afghans, for me, is casting on all those stitches. I only want to have to do it once, so no room for miscounting or error!)
Well, as luck would have it, I didn't adapt quite correctly. On the very first row. (Which, after having done the bottom edge, meant I had already knit eight rows.) I am a perfectionist. I don't let myself make mistakes. If I notice a mistake in my knitting, I do what I can to take it out, much to my own detriment sometimes. Occasionally I'll let it slide if it's not too egregious, but usually, I can't stand it. So when I realized I hadn't done the first row right (which I didn't notice until I started the third), I had a few options: take out two rows of knitting (meaning over 500 stitches), which is never an appealing thing to do; let it slide and accept that it would just look wonky at the bottom of the blanket - also not too thrilled by that one; or continue with the third row, dropping the offensive stitches when I got to those ones so I could fix them as I went. I chose option three. It meant it took me a long time to get that third row done, but I managed to fix it so it looked fairly normal. I'm still pretty new at this "dropping stitches when you get to them" business rather than just ripping back and re-doing them, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Of course, I then noticed several rows later that there was one I had missed, but by that point it would have been just too much work to drop down that many rows and manage to stay within the pattern. So, this blanket has an imperfection. An obvious one, if you're looking for it.
That's the good thing about knitting for non-knitters, though - usually they're not looking for it.
Anyway. That was a really long post with lots of writing and utterly lacking in pictures. Terrible re-start to my knitting blog. I'll try to do better next time (which hopefully will be sometime sooner than a year away...)
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