Fourth Try's a Charm

The first square for this month's project--a green square completed in seed st--I knew I wanted to make for a while. It just fit.

For the second square, I'm trying to use up some pink yarn and it's not going far. I've tried three different st patts so far. I'm choosing them out of a book (The Knitting Directory, Alison Jenkins) and they're coming out a lot more ...vertically squished than the photos in there. A purl st chevron, moss st triangles (purl triangles + knit triangles)... I think I'm just going to settle on the caterpillar st and keep going once I frog it and cast on enough sts (oops).

Blah.. knitter's block I suppose. At least all this frogging is giving me practice at the double cast on. I still don't like how you can't tell how long the tail is going to be beforehand, but it's so much more fun to cast on that way than knitting them on. ...a nice change, we'll say, to use fingers instead of needles.

Knitting continentally isn't getting any easier (thank you, learning curve). The seed st was awesome and easy; surprisingly knitting and especially purling are more difficult when not alternating st. Weird.

But my commercial break from The Incredibles is over. Back to the needles for me.

May 2008 Project

So I can better develop this newly learned skill, I decided that my project for this month will be to knit 3 sections for WUA using using the continental method. Stash busting, charity, and practice all in one shot.

Knit-Picking

I learned continental knitting! And I love it <3 style="font-style: italic;">Stitch 'n Bitch. I'd heard about continental knitting before that, but always figured I'd learn some other time. SnB likened it to crocheting and had all these pictures. The more I looked at them, the more I realized that it's all the same thing. The yarn is doing the exact same thing in the English method as continental. It's just oriented a bit different, coming from a different direction.

After this revelation, I tried it and promptly fell in love. Alright, now I'm not so quick at it, but it's amazingly smoother and I'm getting better at it really quickly.

The only downsides are that I think I'm knitting tighter than ever (small price to pay) and I'm a bit concerned about dpn's. My experience with them is limited, but I'm worried that by moving the needles more for continental, the sts are going to slip off one of the needles. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

For now, so excited!


(And yes, the title was borrowed from Stitch 'n Bitch)

New blog!

As if I don't have enough sites to neglect already, I'm starting this new blog dedicated solely to crafts. Mostly, I knit and crochet, do some cross-stitch, and eventually I'll add sewing to that list.

New site = renewed motivation. Keeping reality in mind, let's start with the following expectations...

Goals:
- one project per month
- one blog post per week

Wish me luck!
--lgleo