I had to drop by the craft store yesterday to pick up some smaller knitting needles. Curiously, I'm a tight crocheter and a loose knitter. Furthermore, I crochet holding the yarn with my left hand and picking with my right but when I knit I use the right hand throw method for both knit and purl. Hopefully not for long, though, because Continental seems much faster if you can manage it. I can knit Continental but purling remains a mystery. My fingers won't follow my directions for some reason. For stockinette that's no big deal because you can knit Continental and purl English, but ribbing is a nightmare that way. So Continental purling is on the list of things to learn this year.
I also picked up some cheap striping acrylic yarn in a cute colorway, a new box of stitch markers, and a cable needle. I know the needle isn't strictly necessary but I'm a sucker for accessories.
I've started and frogged an extremely simple hat pattern like 20 times in the last few days. It's knit on straight needles and then drawn up at the end, which is fine and makes sense, but I totally suck at fixing mistakes. I'll be 30 rows in, make a mistake, try to fix it, drop the stitch, and then swear and frog the whole thing because I can never pick it back up properly. It's a tiresome process. I wish I knew a real live knitter that could lend me some wisdom in person, but for now I think I'll have to start dropping in lifelines every ten or so rows so that I don't have to frog back to the beginning so often. I'm entirely spoiled by crochet, which is dead simple to frog and where every stitch is it's own little independent entity that won't drop or unravel to the beginning if you drop your hook.
What's the most obsessive-compulsive thing you do in a normal day?
Submitted by Nikki.
I keep a list of things I need to do every day and check it off as I do it. This includes things like feeding the cat and taking medication, which one would think would be second nature after a year or two.
I love to window shop for things I don't need and/or can't afford. Even if I have no new projects in mind I will pet yarn by the hour, prompting exasperated eyerolling from my shopping partners. Knitting and crochet communities are dangerous territory for me because it's far too easy to find links to recommended products that I never knew I needed until they were pointed out. Recently, I've glanced lustily at:
I need none of these things. Almost all of my clothes have pills and I wear them anyway, so why do I need a Sweater Stone, exactly? The yarn daisies fascinate me because my mother had plastic daisies very similar to these in her knitting bag when I was a toddler. But I can wind convenient center pull balls using just my own two hands, so why do I still long for daisies that would be hidden beneath yarn most of the time? The Options set is something I intend to have eventually, but not until I've knit more than one project on circs. Namaste needles would be ridiculous for a newbie knitter like myself--I think I'll be getting some Crystalites Ice Acrylics to indulge my fetish for transparency. KnitKlips are something else I could see myself actually getting because I despise seaming things together. I let several Christmas gifts languish in the knitting basket until I seamed them together at the very last moment. I was wrapping gifts with a yarn needle clenched between my teeth. It was sad.
Despite my desire for the insane and unnecessary, the next things going into my bag at the craft shop will be sensible things like cable needles and sock yarn.
Shopping for quality yarn is made infinitely more difficult when the most popular natural fiber is wool. Wool gives me the pricklies and eventually gives me a skin rash if I wear, knit, or crochet with it. Even the wool/acrylic blended yarns give me skin problems. While making a double thick Wool-Ease scarf for a friend for Christmas I had to wear bandaids on the fingers that the yarn slides over to keep myself from going insane. I love the look of Patons SWS and Rowan Tapestry, but as soon as I ran my hand over some Soy/Wool blend skeins in the store I knew that I could never actually wear anything I knit or crocheted with those yarns. I was slightly encouraged by claims at Craftster and Crochetville that KnitPicks Wool of the Andes was soft and pleasant, but the moment I opened the box of yarn I knew that anything I made from this yarn would be destined for someone else. I'd like to try soy or bamboo yarns or even merino, but it will have to wait until my yarn budget allows for adventurous purchases.
The top part holds the things I use the most often as well as a few odds and ends that are handy in a pinch.
- Scissors
- Ring and coilless stitch markers
- An Altoids tin full of yarn and tapestry needles
- A stitch holder
- A pen for marking up my pattern
- Point protectors
- Needle wraps
- Sticky notes for making notes or keeping my place in the pattern
- Extra buttons
- Tape measure
- Pom-Pom maker
- Yarn bobbins
- A metal Susan Bates Knit-Chek
- Stack of index cards binder clipped together for making notes or shopping lists
- Two(!) reference books--The Knitting Answer Book and The Crochet Answer Book
- A plastic ruler
- All of my crochet hooks
- A tiny flashlight
- A pencil for non-permanent pattern marking
- A lighter for fiber testing and certain types of yarn joins
The second half of this project involves tracking my needles and hooks in a spreadsheet. I put the basic spreadsheet together in OpenOffice and uploaded it to Google Docs & Spreadsheets. I haven't done my crochet hooks yet, but there's plenty of daylight left. I've also begun some yarn and project sheets, but those aren't ready for prime time.
I'm not partial to doilies myself, but in all things I'm a completist. I simply can't call my crochet self-education complete until I've learned thread crochet. To that end, one item on my list of crafting resolutions for the New Year is to complete at least one thread project. This particular piece is the famous Petite Pineapple Doily by Patricia Heritt, renowned for its ability to ease newbie threadies into the realm of tiny hooks and maddeningly microscopic stitches. Tension issues aside, I'm having fun with thread. Something about the meticulousness of the process combined with the pleasant pattern repeat is soothing. Still, I can't imagine stitching an Irish wedding dress or a bedspread.
How did you find out the secret behind Santa Claus?
Submitted by Carinish.
In the middle of my ninth Christmas Eve I was awakened from a light sleep by the sound of the bell on the end of my stocking jingling. Naturally I assumed it was Santa Claus, so I crept downstairs to get a peek at the old chap. My heart was pounding 100 miles an hour. But alas, no Santa--just my parents sitting on the floor stuffing our stockings with cigarettes hanging out of the corners of their lips. I didn't say anything or let them know that I was there. I got revenge by waking my brother and telling him that Santa was a big fat lie. Luckily he didn't seem to recall my midnight confession.
How do you take your tea or coffee?
Submitted by Vasquez.
Coffee should be strong, sweet, and made with clear, cold water heated to the proper temperature. Even cheap coffee is bearable when made properly, though it might need to be toned back a bit with cream and sugar. Only decent-to-good coffee can withstand being taken black. Reheated coffee is the devil.
Tea can be made the lazy way or the right way. The lazy way involves two bags of Bigelow tossed into a large mug and allowed to steep into bitterness indefinitely after the addition of cream, sugar, and possibly lemon. I do this more often than I care to admit to. Less effortless but far more enjoyable involves pots, strainers, cozies, and a good loose leaf tea. Water is boiled, the pot is warmed and swathed in a cozy or towel, and then more water is boiled and poured into the pot with measured tea. After an appropriate number of minutes have passed the tea is strained into an already warm mug. Black and sweet herbal teas call for sugar and a dash of cream. White, green, and strong herbal teas are best enjoyed naked.
I frog my mistakes, too. This weekend, I frogged a toe of a sock four times in a row because... read more
on Shopping and Frogging