Phew! I did it.

Well, after many, many attempts I finally got the knotted wad in the yarn. :-)

I can continue now

I made a beginner mistake.  Of course, I am a beginner so I don't feel too bad. I just started using yarn straight out of the skein.  I didn't make a ball first.  The yarn got a HUGE knot in it about 3/4 of the way through.  It was bad because I had so much on the needles I didn't want to frog it.  So I had to undo the partial ball that I had already started.  It took at least 3 weekends of frustration to finally get it undone.

I must admit, I am very excited now to keep on working on the sock.  Of course, I have learned my lesson the hard way but i do feel proud of getting it fixed. There were many times I wanted to just grab some scissors, cut out the yarn, and restart.

Onward and upward.:-)

 

We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast....

For Ravelympics 2012!!1
This is my first year participating and I am excited to actually begin something on-time.  The team I am on is Team Tribute after The Hunger Games. WooHoo!!!
The project I am trying is my first pair of socks.

I have had to reknit the cuff several times. First, I measured the widest part of my foot like the book advises. Then I multiplied it my 5 stitches per inch.  Multipling 8.5 *5 gave me 48 stitches. The opening ceremonies were starting and I wanted to get started so I cast-on these and worked for about 5 rows.

After the Internet was available again, I looked up the gauge of the yarn I was knitting.  It turns out the yarn I was knitting is 4.5 stitches to the inch.  This gave me 39 stitches which was easily divisible by the 3 needles used to knit the socks.  I had 13 stitches per needle. Following the directions, the ribbing was worked in knit 3 purl 1 for about 2 inches.

It didn't match up.  It was always ending up with a knit 2 section before starting again. After feeling disgruntled, I read the instructions.  It said that these socks would be knit using a double ribbing, knit 2 purl 2, for the cuffs. 
Yikes, I had to restart again.  This time, cast on the 40 stitches to make the pattern work out. It turn out that 40 stitches was what the pattern suggested I cast on in the first place!! 
Sometimes you have to do things wrong 4 times to get it right once.

Back to the Beginning

Well, I have frogged the sweater.  I was trying something new: cables.  The cables did not seem to work out. That tends to happen when you don't know what you are doing.:-)
I am going to start again.  I don't think that I am going to cast on as many stitches as before.  When I was frogging, the sweater just seemed to be WAY to large ( and for me that is saying something).  On to the knovel.

In these next two chapters we find out that Martha is Helen's cousin from Wyoming.  Helen stayed with Martha for a while when she was younger.Helen had gotten preganant in high school.  She then went to Wyoming to have the child and give it up for adoption. They two became very close during that time.

Martha was also suffered from some domestic abuse and that is why she came to Fort Conner. Helen helped her and got her a lawyer, Mr. Chambers to help settle things. Her husband died in January and they are looking to see if Martha is going to inherit anything. 

On the lighter side, Steve helps Kelly with her dog.  He brings over some old golf balls to keep Carl occupied.  Some of the golfers try to say that Carl is a danger and needs to leave the golf balls alone.  However, Steve offers to give some free golf lessons an that appeases them.  Steve must be a great player because they are all excited.

Chapter 1

I have almost finished the gauge on my socks. I have decided to work on the Knit One, Kill Two project.  The main project is the Lambspun’s Whodunnit Shell.  There is also a simple scarf pattern but I thought I would skip it. It is simply casting on 10 stitches and then knitting a garter stitch until you reach the size you want.


To complete the shell pattern, you need size 15 needles

I like bamboo better than metal

a bulky yarn

Lion's Brand in Homespun

and the pattern to start.

Hopefully it is very easy like it says

 The gauge should be 2 stitches per inch. I hate doing a gauge but since I am not sure of this yarn, I will.  Now, on to the book J

Chapter  1

We meet the main character Kelly Flynn.  She has come back to Colorado because her Aunt Helen has died and Kelly is in charge of the estate.  The first person that she and her dog Carl meet is Mimi Shafer. Mimi appears to be a nice lady and owns the knitting and needlepoint store in town. Mimi takes Kelly to the bistro that is attached to the yarn store. She learns of the wonderful cinnamon rolls made there.

After the coffee and roll, Kelly heads off to the lawyers office. At the lawyer’s office, Kelly learns that her aunt died because of a robbery. She couldn’t understand why someone would rob her aunt. The lawyer tells her that Helen had taken out a $20,000 loan just days before.  They believe the money was taken from her purse. They saw a homeless person in the area and arrested him. 

My two loves!!

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Ravelry

WooHoo!!! Well I finally have my Ravelry account organized. I can't believe how amazing it is. I love how everything in in a place on my account. The books, needles, and yarn are easily found and I even have some offers on yarn.  It was almost too much too soon. We will see how it goes though.

Punt

In American football there is a phrase called "Drop back and punt".  What that means is that you have to see that your progress is not going well and just stop and punt to the other team and try again.


This is what I have done with my knitting.  My UFO's are now frogged and ready to try again to knit something.

It looks like a big pile of Ramen Noodles:-)

Much better

This has also helped me to add some pictures to my Ravelry page!  I have been meaning to do this for a long time.

Worked on for SOOOOO long

meh

The yarn below is the socks that I showed in the previous post.  I have lost the orginal pattern and am not experienced enough to convert one pattern to another.

Cause I want to:-)

The podcast that I have been listening to and really enjoying is called Cast-On by Brenda Dayne. I am listening to the begining ones so I don't know if the format has changed.  It has amazing music and her voice is wonderful and soothing.
Oh yeah! She talks about knitting as well :-)
So far my favorite song is I wonder by Natalie Brown
I even paid for a CD!

Back to Basics

Well, I have decided to take my blog title more literally.  I am now reading a Knitting (K)novel. I have decided to try the "classic" by Maggie Sefton. This is a murder mystery involving someone who owns a yarn shop.  It also includes a pattern which I want to knit and post as well.

I hope to start on it pretty soon. The reason I am posting this is to kind of kick my butt into gear to get some projects done.

Needle Know How

In the book Knitting Without Tears, Elizabeth Zimmerman talks about all the different types of knitting needles. She even has some that are made out of walrus tusks. Wow! The needles that are my fanciest are my carved wooden ones I got at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. 
She mentioned that if the coating has come off aluminum needles and you use oily wool (boot wool) the needles may turn blackish. It come off the the wash, but I thought it was interesting to know.

While reading her book, you can tell that she has knitted for a lifetime.  The way that she casually adds deep infomation shows how relaxed and comfortable she is about knitting. For example, when discussing the stockinette stitch, she explains why it curls at the bottom.  Each stich is just a minute bit bigger on the front than back.  They are bigger horizontally than vertically and she suggested NOT using stockinette for borders.

I alway forget which is garter and which is stockinette. I try to picture a stocking (sock) in my head and remember that it has a right side and a wrong side.  Therefore, stockinette is knit one row, purl the next, knit then purl etc. This stitch is great for circular needles.

My favorite the garter is knit every row, not to hard to think about. However, it is harder on circular needles because you would have to knit one, then purl next row.  This stitch is great of afghans and baby blankets because the edges don't curl. :-)

Ribbing is great for socks because of its elasticity. She then adds that if you knit into the back of knit stitches and purl in the back of purls, the ribbing will be even more elastic.

Next "chapter" talks about the techniques used in knitting.

I love her attitude about knitting and I assume life.  If you don't want to do it, then don't.  Life is too short. You should enjoy knitting and not stress over it.

Moving on...

Well, this is what the finished product looked like.

Glad my cat doesn't look like this.

It is doubtful that anyone would want to wear this. However, much was learned. I know that I can knit 3 together and was able to look up some new knitting terms.

Hopefully, the title is accurate

The next project should go much better.  Finally reading the beloved Elizabeth Zimmerman.  This was the only book they had at the library by her. Everyone seems to love her. After the last book, no tears while knitting sounds great.:-)

Seems unusual that there are no "projects" listed.  Let's hope things go well. 

Almost there

I have finished the main part of the hat. I am not sure if this is what it is suppose to look like.

Kinda looks like a bib

I still have to sew that together and put the ears on.  Here is one of the ears. I think if I made it bigger

One down, one to go

I could have turned it into a bikini top :-) Not a good idea though. In the instructions, it said to use a seed stitch but with this chenille yarn, it is hard to tell what it is. I would use just a plain stockinette stitch.
This book is not really for the beginning knitter.  It has patterns but not much help.  So if you know what you are doing you might like it. Right now, I don't.

Almost finished :-)

After the stockinette stitch for 2 inches, I had to decrease by knitting 3 together. With the yarn being so thick I wasn't sure if I could. I knitted 2 together and then put that back on the left needle.  I knitted 2 together again. I hope this works.
After about 6 rows it became easier to knit the 3 together.

Just wiggly row so far

Regrouping

Well, I couldn't bring myself to cut my knitting yarn until I figured out what to do.
So now, I have decided to knit this hat.

Cat on a Hat

Right now I only have black chenille yarn but hopefully when I am finished I can find some scraps to make the face.
Here is a better picture of what it will look like

Hard to see the eyes but there like w's with v's underneath

On many of these blogs people get hats done in less than a day.  I don't think that will happen but I will try.  Right now I am longtail casting on 55 sts and working in Stockinette stitch.  Hope  it won't take too long.

This is not a video of me, but it seemed to show how to long tail cast on well.

I stand corrected..

I looked in the Index of the book and found Jacquard Stockinette Stitch on p.32 on the book. This is what it said- "Follow the chart, twisting yarns together at each color change. After the last row, beg again with the 1st row."

Fortunately, since I am using all black, it isn't a problem.

Now onto the regular pattern.  After finishing the sole, I cast on 31 stitches and worked in stockinette stitch for 6 row.  Then is says "Cut the yarn. Put the 13 stitches at either end on the spare needles, and continue working only on the 5 stitches in the center to make the upper part of the bootie sock.  Yikes!!
Cut the yarn!! How to I work the stitches in the center if I have cut the yarn.  I will have to ask one of the people at the Yarning group in Jonesborough.

I've got soul

Bootie call

Ok. I went to make the booties to go with the Cat Hat. Unfortunately it tells me to work in a Jacquard Stockinette St.  There was no place where is explained what that is. I looked on the interweb and found a couple of sites where people had questions about this book, but no one had any answers.  There was no errata available. ( I learned that means information that was wrong in the book and they corrected it on the website ;-) )
This is taken from the website Blue Garter "Garter stitch jacquard (and I’m using the term as Montse Stanley does to describe stranded color patterning) is not difficult to do; you can work any charted design you’d use for regular stranded colorwork, except that you have to work each row of the motif twice: right to left and then left to right, so that your design reads on the garter ridges. On the wrong side there’s a pleasurable dance of the working and resting wools fore and aft to keep the strands on the inside of the sweater"
This was also a great help.  Knitting Patterns
Fortunately, I am doing the patter in just plain black so I don't have to worry about the color changes.
Once I figured out what to do, the bottom part knitted up easily.  It took only 10 minutes to do the sole.

Which side is up?