A Knitting Update

I finally finished The Neverending Weasley  Jumper. Oh my word, that took a long, long time. It was meant to be easy. In terms of knitting complexity I suppose it was - it's basically stocking stitch. I picked up a few new techniques about finishing off sections and doing necklines and so on but ultimately it wasn't hard. It just took soooooooooooo long to finish.

Then as is usual with me, I got complete post-craft ennui and hated it. I can't get over the feeling that it's too big and too shapeless and too rubbish. Catherine said she loved it and it's the perfect Sunday cosy jumper but ach, I wish I had made it a size or two down. It was meant to be oversized but maybe not quite that much?

I then had a prolonged rest. My current problem is that I don't have the right wool for all the projects I want to start and I can't find things that I want to do that suit the wool I do have. So I set to with a random pretty shade of wool and vague thoughts of attempting some sort of lacy, holey type pattern - Ravelry provided me with a link to this and away I went.

(If I were less honest I would skate over the fact that I was going to make handwarmers but they ended up so big I had to turn it into a snood. Ho hum. This is what happens when you don't know the size of wool you're using and pick any random pair of needles.)

End result: a cute snood!

I'm still super novicey at knitting so I'm taking every project as a chance to learn something new. In this one I managed k2tog and skp and how to do a yarn over properly. Woo! It was very pleasing to knit up as well - anything would seem fun after approx 6 months of chuffing stocking stitch but this was genuinely very soothing to make.

Up next...no idea! I need to investigate some patterns for all the wool I seem to have collected. Eventually I want to give circular and cable needles a try but they both scare the bejesus out of me at the moment, so give it time.

A Bit More Knitting

Operation Get Less Shit At Knitting continues.

After the successful snood, I tried out a much more complicated scarf stitch pattern thing (I'm totally down with all the knitting lingo) which has gone quite bizarrely wonky. Yup, still shit at knitting.

Check out the slant on that!

I know I went wrong right at the very beginning because I was doing it on a train and people kept distracting me, but I recovered that and I don't think it was enough to cause such epic slantiness. Ho hum. Maybe it'll sort itself out when I eventually finish it.

(nb - old women LOVE young(ish) knitters, don't they? Actual quote: "It's so nice to see lovely young girls like you knitting." Bahahaha. Thanks lady. I will take the young compliment and run merrily into the distance with it.)

Anyway, Project Wonky Scarf is on hold for the time being. It's taught me how to do slip stitches and passing stitches over and digging up a stitch from the loop and all that jazz. I'll finish it at some point. 

I decided to do something quick and easy to boost my spirits in the meantime, dug out the special needs needles and lovely chunky wool and whizzed my way through this chunky drop stitch cowl pattern. It was so quick and easy to do.

It's pink so it's obviously not for me but you've got to model your creations, haven't you?

New skill added to the list: drop stitches. I'll definitely make it again but will probably play around a bit and make it thinner and longer as it does seem perhaps a smidge too wide and short. It's cute though!

Never one to massively overface myself with a project or anything, I've now started work on a Weasley jumper as a Christmas present. Current status: stocking stitching my life away.

A Bit of Knitting

Operation Get Less Shit At Knitting commenced a few months ago. I've dabbled before - made a scarf and some mittens and even a headband thingy - but then for no particular reason I can remember, I put the needles down and didn't feel even remotely tempted to start again. I'm a very casual crafter.

The urge came back upon me a few months ago and a scarf seemed a nice easy way to get back into the swing of things. Armed with some green wool and jaunty needles, off I went.

Did a bit.

Then a bit more.

And quite a lot more - it was as long as my legs before I eventually I ran out of wool.  I was gonna attach more wool and do the world's biggest and widest scarf but it happily ended up being the perfect snood length, so I stitched it together instead and voila!

I am very pleased with myself. It is SO COSY. Plus I can hide in it if people are annoying me or the world is getting too much.

Next up is some verra beautiful multi coloured wool (green, obviously) and I'm actually going to make a scarf this time. It's much more complicated. I have to slip stitches and pick up loops and all sorts of things that are bound to go horribly wrong when I'm not paying attention. If I manage not to cock it up then it'll be very pretty!

In Which I Knit

I wasn't interested in knitting when my grandma was alive and that's something I really regret because she was truly amazing at it. Bright red nails and furiously clattering knitting needles: that's how I remember her.  I was almost always dressed in something she'd made me. So were my dolls. She even knitted me a Care Bear once. Awesome.

This was obviously before I could talk and say "Oi, family, stop dressing me in pink!"

She hasn't been alive for a long time though (I've been a grand-orphan for well over a decade), so it's my mum that I have to turn to for help now. Knitting isn't her preferred craft (she is shit hot at cross-stitch) but she knows a hell of a lot more than I do and she can usually help me out. The problem is this: I have a huge mental block about casting on. I'm sure there's an easy method out there somewhere but I can't learn it. Things usually go like this:

Me: "Muuuuuuum"

Mum: "Can't you remember how to do it yet?"

Me: "Clearly not" *holds out wool and needles with an imploring look*  "Show me please."

Mum: "You just do this." *whirl of wool* *hands it back* "Easy! Try it yourself now."

Me: "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" (nervous hysterical laughter - I don't actually find it funny) *attempts it* *ends up somehow tying a sheepshank knot around the needle* "Oh for fuck's sake."

Once we've gone through that a few times and I've basically resigned myself to never being able to cast on properly, I plod along quite merrily. I knitted myself a headband in a couple of hours on holiday whilst curled up on the sofa feeling like death and trying to sidetrack myself by watching Pointless. There was the occasional "Your tension is quite tight, isn't it?" "THAT'S BECAUSE I AM TENSE" outburst but other than that, it was all good. I might be shocking at casting on but I can knit, I can purl and I can cast off. That's all that was needed for this pattern which I found on A Stash Addict. And yes, I did google "super easy knitted headband pattern". FYI, "Easy knitted headband" patterns are NOT EASY.

What I'm not so good at is following instructions because either the wool or the needles (or both) was the wrong size and my first attempt was not big enough to fit around my giant noggin. Second time worked much better though. I added on some more stitches and a couple of extra rows and it fits just right.



Yay! I made that.