lookie what i made!

start to finish: long-tail cast-on, basic knit stitch, basic cast-off. i made somethin, yay! what did i make? err...umm...a rectangle! it appears that i skipped a stitch in there somwhere, but only one. now what made it almost magically come together this time around? no idea. i think i haven't done anything for a few days. maybe it just needed some time to marinate. lol - or incubate perhaps... who knows. in any event, progress is being made.  yay. and uh once it's just kinda working it's pretty cool. not going to jump headlong into the purl yet. maybe in a few days tho instead of a couple weeks. if i'd had another hour or so to spend on this tonight i coulda had a potholder. *grin*

my last few efforts were done w/ the kid's shorter needles. maybe tomorrow i'll whip the long ones back out and see how well i handle them. maybe try something longer. still not ready to do it in public where people may get hurt (ie the train). haha

update...

alrighty... so I haven't said much, but it doesn't mean i haven't still been practicing. decided to do more stitches at a time so I have a slightly longer piece of knitted nothing. and then I did a little one to try casting-off - the last row of a piece. it took me a few tries to figure that out. i've still just been watching videos from the same site and then trying it. i'd typically watch it a few times, then try it, then when it didn't work, watch some more, then try it. i did try to do it along w/ the video once or twice but of course she was going faster than me and i couldn't keep up. what would be handy would be a voice activated player so that i could tell it to pause every few seconds to compare hand placement and such. using both hands to knit made it a tad difficult (tho not impossible actually) to pause it periodically. anyway, i have a few more pics i have to upload. i still have about a month, and i think i'm going to spend that practicing. i think i've gotten enough of a handle on the basic mechanics, but i need to work on making it work smoothly and being consistent w/ the stitches. if i can manage to knit a few rows that look all neat and purdy, that'll be cool. if i can do that in the next couple of weeks, then i'll switch to the purl stitch which just changes the placement of the yarn. Hopefully it's a little easier to get that one. If there's time, i'll try somehing that involves a combination of the two, but i'm not altogether sure that's likely... but we shall see...

challenges

* holding on...

> keeping a tight enough hold on the yarn

>holding the stitches on the right needle in place

>hands not slipping all over the place (those needles are tres slippery, man! ;) )

* i always manage to miss a stitch somewhere along the line

* getting the left needle into and out of the stitch w/out pulling it too loose

* working too close to the tip of the top of the needle > everything slides off

sheesh! so much to work on - whew...

practice practic practice

not much to report... the first method of knitting i tried was the continental method which is holding the yarn in your left hand. needle w/ work on it starts in the left hand and the knitting moves it to the right needle, then you switch. i decided to take a look at the English method and for it, you hold the yarn w/ the right hand. It kinda seems a little easier, but I haven't given up on the first yet. So, currently I'm in a bit of a holding pattern, just working on the actual knit stitch for now.  havne't yet made my way to that darn glossary yet...maybe this weekend... we shall see. 

it ain't pretty...but it's progress...

Ok, so I've progressed from casting-on to actually "knitting", not to be confused w/ purling which is a whole different ballgame and next on the list. Incidentally, all the cast-ons that I worked on (all 3) involved only 1 needle. Nice way to start and totally unintentional. They just happened to be the first ones on the page. There are actually many, many more options. But learning them is beyond the scope of my assignment...Had I started in January - maybe. But, truth be told, I might could get into this...Noooo, not cuz I'm old! :P I think it's my sliiiiiiight OCD tendency (as yet un clinically diagnosed ;) )that both likes it and will be driven crazy by it... but I digress. Ummm... Yeah, so I've now tried going from the cast-on to actually knitting a couple of rows... It ain't pretty, but it's progress nonetheless. I also know that currently my technique is not such that I need to be trying this on the train yet unless I have a seat to myself. It's all fun and games til someone loses an eye... Tho...I could "borrow" my kid's shorter needles... hmmm.... Yeah, clearly I didn't do enough research before hand. But hey, what's life if not a trial and error process? Did I have ANY clue what a beginning knitter should look for in needles? Nope. But it's all good.  Anyway, working on knitting for another day or two. Then purling perhaps. Then I need to get back to that glossary so I know what comes next and how to read a pattern and what not so I can try to make something. While I do think there's TONS to actually learn, I'm not trying for all of it at the moment. For now - casting-on, knitting, purling, casting-off, terminology, reading a pattern and then making something. Although the "making something" doesn't actually have to come last in the process. Once I can cast-on, knit & cast-off, I could make something. But I wanna know the rest anyway. Ok, going to have at it a li'l more. I do have some pics of today's efforts that I'll upload tomorrow... Fun times.

needles, yarn & cast-ons

After leaving Walmart having forgotten knitting supplies, I doubled back (no easy feat mind you) and got needles & yarn for myself and the munchkin. Why? Cuz she decided she wanted to learn to knit too. Short gold needles, pink/purple/white yarn for her. Long, grey needles, red/pink/white yarn for me (picked out by TGP).

Awww learning together ain't that sweet... Anyhoo. Earlier today (this morn and a li'l after I got home) I checked out a couple other cast-ons. The Single and the...eh I forget the name. Anyway, I taught Tyler the single. She actually managed to get the hang of it. I was impressed. Granted she's five and after a bit she decided that there were other things she could do with yarn and knitting needles, and so be it. I ain't mad at her. But at this rate it's going to take a while for her to get to and through the sweater she decided she wants to make her grandmother...

After she lost interest, I sat there for a while longer w/ my practice piece of thread cycling thru the different cast-ons (have I mentioned yet that that's basically how you make the first row? That's what it is.) Do it til the yarn runs out, admire it, take a pic, pull it off and start over... I think I've got those three down enough. Next? I took a quick look at a Knitting Glossary and it was frightening. I'm trying to decide if I want to proceed by just trying to master individual skills or just pick a pattern and use that as my base. We'll see...

The goal? The plan?

The goal is ultimately to knit something, a square perhaps (that I'll pass off as a potholder). Or perhaps a rectangle (that I will conveniently call a scarf...for an infant maybe, but a scarf nonetheless).

I actually do want to try to learn more than just one way to start, proceed and finish. That'd be easy and hey, life being what it is, that may be what I end up doing, but what fun is that? Um did I just allude to this being fun? Well, yes, yes indeed I did... Anyway, start by learning some various things separtately, then put them together and see what happens. It's vague, but a plan nonetheless. Frankly I don't yet know enough to put together much more of a "curriculum" than that. Definitely making it up as I go along.