Turtles and Lace

I’ve had some intense, frustrating knitting over the past few weeks. After finishing the fingerless gloves for one of Z’s sisters, I moved on to this incredibly challenging bracelet.

I tried the Bluebell first which was, for me, the harder of the two that I tried. It was so challenging for me for a number of reasons: 1) It required me to pay a lot of attention - the pattern repeated every 10 lines, but each one of those lines were different and required me to pay attention; 2) I had practiced some of the increase and decrease stitches before but not all of them and I had not had that much practice with yo, k2tog, p2tog, ssk, p2tog tbl and 3) I had not used beads before. Ugh! That’s a lot to take on!

The yarn over was particularly hard for me even though it’s supposed to be the easiest. I understood how to go from knitting to yarn over to knitting. Fine. But for some reason I had to return again and again to knittinghelp.com to watch her do yarn over over and over again each time I did it between purls.

I never really did get a totally handle on the bead1. For the most part, I did get it. You have to pull the bead through and once you knit the row above it you have to be careful that it stays in the right place. However, not all my beads hung on the right side of the fabric exactly how I wanted them to and I kept pulling and tugging at them.

I undid and redid this bracelet so many times that my sister was laughing at me and Z was scared of my cursing. I just couldn’t see the pattern for the first few times I knit it and making a mistake was really, really hard to correct because of all the lace-like increases and decreases.

Then I moved on to Lily of the Valley for my friend, JM. This one was much easier. I think mostly because every other row was all purling.

And then it was time to start Sheldon the Turtle!

I love Sheldon. I was excited to make him for Trysa and the raisin, but when it was finally time I had a problem letting go. I guess I’ll have to make one for Z. I ordered the yarn from KnitPicks as the pattern suggested and was pleasantly surprised at the affordable price, $2.50 a skein!

The beginning was really difficult. It required starting on double pointed kneedles with only 2 stitches on each needle and then knitting each stitch front and back (kfb)—Thanks again knittinghelp.com! The kneedles would move around and I would get confused about which stitch was next and a couple of times I lost all the stitches, they just slipped right off. But I made it.

I finished the body pretty quickly, brought him over to Z’s parents’ house and convinced Z’s mom to embroider eyes on him so that he would be entirely child safe for T & the raisin. She did a great job! He looks so cute!

The shell and the legs were easy. I really liked how the shell came out like something from an old Nintendo game.

Days later, Z & I were watching TV and together and Sheldon’s little body was sitting on the coffee table, and Z said, out of no where, “Kt, are his eyes on the wrong side?” I almost started crying! But there was no going back. What was supposed to be his body is now his head.

As a result, I had to redo his attachment panel (aka sweater, aka diaper) several times. In order to fit it onto Sheldon’s fat, round body instead of a thin, long body I started off with 26 stitches instead of 16 and I don’t know if T will ever get his shell off him again.

Look at that butt! Attaching the shell to Sheldon’s diaper took more time than I thought since I just couldn’t understand how the I-cord attachment was supposed to work.

The directions on knitty.com say this:

CO 4 sts. Slide sts to other end of dpn. Pulling yarn tightly across back of sts on needle, k3, sl 1. Line up shell and attachment panel with WS together, holding attachment panel facing you. Beginning on the top left side of the attachment panel, pick up and knit one stitch through the edges of both pieces held together.

It took me awhile to realize that I should use the needle that was free of stitches to pick up a stitch from the attachment panel and from the shell and to knit it. I thought that picking up stitiches usually meant the kneedle that currently had stitches on it and in the past when I picked up stitches you just leave them there to chill, not actually knit them.

So now Sheldon is out in the world ready to be loved by the raisin and T.

I'm a knot-maker!

A dying breed

I'm not gonna lie to you

knitting with double pointed needles was confusing. Ms. Stoller offered precious little advice in her book, and what was there only managed to confuse me. Instead I found the videos on KnittingHelp to indeed live up to their name and be very helpful. I've made three fingerless gloves as of today and for the first two I've had to watch the video in order to start. The most confusing part of knitting with double pointed needles is, unfortunately, the first row. After casting on the stitches and distributing them evenly onto three needles (it's easiest to put stitches on the middle needle last)

Make sure that all the stitches have the bumpy part facing inward

Position the needles into a triangle with the needle with the live yarn on top and the middle needle on the right side. Hold this in your left hand.

Hold a fourth needle in your right hand. Coming at the third needle (the one with the first stitch you cast on) on the inside of the triangle of needles start knitting.

For the first 3-4 stitches you can use both the live yarn and the tail so that you won't have to weave the tail in later.

Always make sure to start off with the same positioning. It's really easy to go the wrong way and suddenly have a row of purls where there should be knits. You should also attach a safety pin in between the first and last needle so that you know when a row ends.

As you continue to knit it gets easier. The needles stay in position easier and you can knit with the fourth needle on the outside.

I was really anxious about the cables because the instructions say to hold the cable needle to the back of work. I don't know if this was obvious to other people or not, but it wasn't to me. The back of the work is the inside of triangle.

Another very confusing part was the thumb. I've been finding out that I don't follow written directions as well as I thought I did. I feel like I'm in grade school and I've been given one of those tests with a serious of questions but the first instruction is don't do anything until you've read all the instructions and the last instruction is don't do any of the instructions at all but meanwhile you've spun around in a circle and screamed your name out loud. As I've made the past few gloves, I've realized that I've read things into the instructions that aren't there at all.

The pattern says, "Work 18 rounds in 4x1 Rib. Next Round: Using waste yarn, k7." For the first two gloves I stayed in rib pattern. Whoops.

For binding off the thumb, the pattern says, "BO loosely." I tried to bind off with the Picot method that is used on the top of the glove. Which, by the way, I'm not 100% convinced I'm doing correctly but it looks pretty much like it should-I think.

Also on the thumb the first time I did it I wound up using all 5 double pointed needles. There was so many wooden spokes sticking out of the glove that I could hardly hold onto it.
It's supposed to look like this:

One day I'll write some instructions about how to pick up stitches, but right now I'm still figuring it out. When it comes out like this


I just take out the stitches and do it again.
Oh and there's this problem.

But in the end, I'm pretty happy with the result.

Fight with Knitting

Knitting and I have been in fight. Now before you get too worried, I’ll let you know we’ve made up and we are ready to continue this relationship. Neither of us have changed, we’ve just come to some understandings about each other. Why a fight you ask? It’s not fair. I knew when I started this that obviously I would be buying yarn all the time, but I had no idea that I would constantly be buying kneedles. I really thought that I could buy one straight kneedle, one circular kneedle and a set of double pointed and I’d be set. So naïve. So uninformed. Instead, it seems that each project requires a kneedle purchase. That’s not true-I knitted my first two scarves on the same 6.0 bamboo kneedles. But I had left over yarn and I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn about circular kneedles and make a lovely, warm brown hat.

I thought knitting on circular kneedles would be a good lead in to knitting on double pointed kneedles. I went to craft store part of Pearl which is hidden behind and across the street from Pearl Paint and hunted through the yarn looking for kneedles. Defeated I went to the front and asked for them. Even as the words came out of my mouth, I foolishly realized that the knitting kneedles were behind the counter and, now, right in front of me. Apparently old ladies like to steal them and use them as weapons. I guess the woman at the counter doesn’t knit because when I asked for size 6 circular kneedles she didn’t look at me funny, didn’t ask any other questions, just handed me a pair. Little did I know that the 29” circulars I received would never make a hat for my normal human sized head. When I found out that "Because the circumference of the piece being knit must be at least 2 inches (5.08 cm) larger than the length of circular needles[sic], this will determine when to choose each needle type," I was thoroughly disheartened. Not only am I constantly in need of kneedles, but now I had bought two for one project. I don’t even know what I can eventually use these for. Of course it took awhile for me to figure this out and that’s when knitting and I got into a fight.

I’ll skip the pouting and feet stamping and go right to the reconciliation. I decided to forgo the hat for now and move right along to the fingerless gloves that I coveted and also promised to my friends who are waiting patiently. I found this great online yarn store, Yarn and Fiber. They had all the Debbie Bliss yarn I could want for 75 cents cheaper a skein than Seaport Yarn and they gave me free delivery. I don’t know if this was some sort of one time ploy to get me hooked or an all the time thing, but I’ll let you know when I find out. I figured that ordering online would give me and knitting some time to cool off.

This was not true.

This place has the fastest response time and delivery of any type of store I’ve ever encountered on the web. I ordered at 10:50. At 10:52 I received an email telling me that they had received the order. At 11:04, I received an email telling me that my order had been put together and shipped! Three days later I had yarn. Crazy fast. I got the kneedles from Knit Picks along with some materials for Sheldon. And then I was ready. Well not mentally, but materially.

Finished Cable Scarf

Here it is, the finished cable scarf ready to be sent out into the cold and keep my friend warm - especially when she’s inside her home. As for lessons learned:

1. Even if you think you don’t need to count your rows, you really really do. I was convinced I could keep it my head. No, no, no. After tearing out a few rows and stressing about if I should tear out rows and redo them, I finally succumbed and started counting my rows, which was a pain at first, but I got used to it eventually.
2. Even counting rows it’s important to pay attention. I messed up once and held the cable needle to the back instead of it to the front. You can see it here:
3. The cabling itself isn’t that hard, it’s everything that comes with it. See above.

Of Hanks and Cables

I really want to make fingerless gloves. Z and I did not put the heat on until Thursday when the temperature dropped below 20 and the wind chill was hovering around the smaller end of the single digit numbers. I can deal with it being cold in the apartment by putting on extra layers and curling up under a blanket, but hands, fingers and toes are always, always freezing. Z of course does not notice a thing. He is fine in his underwear resting his bare feet on the couch with toes waving in the air and will frequently look at me in surprise when it’s absolutely freezing in here because I have on sweatpants, a long sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, my bathrobe and am under a blanket. So, specifically, I want to make these fingerless gloves. However, they require a few skills that I have not even begun to learn yet including knitting in the round and cable knits. Therefore, I am first making this good ole cabled scarf for my friend that I recently visited who also has an extremely cold house.

First I needed yarn. I already had the cable needles from an earlier stop to a yarn store when I found out I needed a yarn needle to make Z’s scarf not have weird little tails all hanging off of it. The pattern says to use Rowan Cork, but I’ve recently found out that stores never have the yarn the pattern calls for and that I don’t know enough about yarn to figure out a good substitute. I’ve also recently found out that all yarn stores are their own unique little universes onto themselves and the place that I set out for yesterday near my apartment was no exception. It’s called Seaport Yarn.

I’ve walked down William Street many, many, many times and I’ve never noticed a yarn store. There’s good reason for that. There’s no way to tell there’s a yarn store in there at 135 William. It looks like an apartment building. There’s a door with the address written on the step and a doorman at a desk inside. No sign. No name written on the buzzer. Nothing. I almost went straight home but another woman walked in, signed her name at the desk and went to the elevator. Encouraged, I decided to try it. I walked in and asked the doorman, who told me to go the 5^th floor and then asked, “First time?” Inside the store are rooms and rooms and hallways filled with yarn. Almost like someone’s apartment with just bins and bins of yarn and some slightly office supply like things around. The women working at the store were very helpful. In the end, I wound up with Aussi Wool W 31 Peacock which was very affordable.

What I didn’t realize until I came home was that I had two hanks of wool, not two skeins and that I had to wind this up into a ball in order to knit. Debbie Stoller advises you to either use a friend's hands for this or your own feet. Neither of these options worked for me, but I managed to not make the yarn into a knot just by laying out the hank next to me. And then I started the cable knit scarf. Really the hardest thing about knitting cables is remembering what row you are on.

Here’s the beginning with some “action” shots. Of course after I took them I realized that the cable needle was supposed to hang down the other side of the piece on this particular row so I had to take all the stitches out and do the row again.

1. Put the next three stitches on the cable needle:

2. Continue knitting, letting the cable needle hang on whatever side of your work the pattern says (ha ha):

3. Then knit the stitches from the cable needle:

Front of work:

Back of work:

I really hadn't considered that the back of a cable doesn't really look like much. It's supposed to make the scarf warmer, but I really prefer scarves to be reversible.

The Beginning or How I Came to Want to Beat Knitting

This Christmas I told my boyfriend I wanted to start knitting. It seemed like a good past time for all that time I spend on the subway or rotting my brains with reality TV or annoying the boyfriend when he is type type typing something away on the computer in a language that I don’t understand or getting blown up online by his friends. I also thought it would make me less of a consumer and more of a maker. Boy, was I wrong. I’m even more of a consumer now. It seems I am constantly in need of more yarn, more needles, more patterns. Doesn’t matter that I’m only on my second knitting project – I have big plans. You see, I’m going to beat knitting. As if it’s a video a game, I want to progress through each level of knitting: double cast on – done; garter stitch – don’t bore me; rib stitch, seed stitch – done and done; cable stitch – done (or, um, in the process). Bring on the knitting in the round on circular or double-pointed needles, bring on the intarsia. My first project was a scarf for the boyfriend, Z. On my way to AZ for Christmas I knitted up my first swatch in garter stitch and decided to make Z a 2x2 rib stitch scarf. Z had gotten me Debbie Stoller’s Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook and some beautiful Merino yarn from Knit, a very helpful store in the east village.

He must’ve looked very cute (and lost) in the knitting store by himself with no knitting knowledge. My entire family was amazed that although we can no longer bring water on the plane, there was absolutely no problem with bringing knitting needles. In case you wanted to know, knitting needles are also allowed in women’s prisons although I’m not sure about men’s prisons. Z and I pretty easily learned the knit stitch at home from the book but learning purl while sitting on the plane trying not to stab the person next to me with needles, the book perched precariously on my knees, and the ball of yarn threatening to fall off the seat and run down the aisle was not the easiest of feats, but within about two weeks my boyfriend had himself a very warm, soft wool scarf. It was also a pretty freakin’ expensive scarf. And that was the beginning of what is quickly becoming an obsession.