Back on the Wagon

Saw something called 'flounce' a while back. It seemed scary at first, but fun and actually maybe not too tough. Decided to get some to make some 'quicky' gifts for the parents that help me out w/ my children's choir at church. It's going ok. This stuff covers a MULTITUDE of sins, let  me tell ya!!! It didn't start off so great, but I figured out what I was doing wrong - not nearly enough flouce between stitches. So the end of the first one is a li'l boring, but it doesn't last too long. Hopefully the fact that I labored over it will make whoever ends up w/ this one not judge :). Perhaps it'll look like it's intentional? lol. In any event. I have this one to finish and 2 more to make by next Thursday. Definitely doable. I was planning to just use one skein per, but am getting a little worried that it won't be long enough. Don't get me wrong, this puppy isn't likely to do much for warmth. It's more of an accessory I think, but it should at least be long enough to go around an neck and hang a li'l in front and back... we shall see...

hmmm... (boring)

soooo...this is more a paper related note for me than anything else... but the first instructional thing I found on knitting was written, and I couldn't work w/ that at all. admittedly, i probably read it twice and moved on. videos helped immensely. however, having learned the basic stitches and a little lingo, now reading some things makes more sense. granted there were pics accompanying what I was reading about (variations on stitches) but no video, no process. i was a little surprised, but i guess it's just a matter of now having more of a reference for the words. i did ultimately try it so in essence putting my own 'video' to the words, but the important thing is that somehow something changed... or maybe it was just who wrote the directiosn. who knows. just something noteworthy i guess... would be a li'l piagetian i think... or could still be vygotsky...not sure... li'l time to figure it out too - eek...

31 stitches the whole time!!

    yippee!! it worked! didn't drop any stitches. didn't gain any. rock on!!! tension consistency needs much work, sure, but one thing at a time. *grin*

experiments in knit/purl combinations

  (that pic's kinda blurry, huh - my bad. didn't notice on the phone, may change it later) doing some more experimenting. the far left section is just straight knitting. the middle section is a combination of knits and purls. the far right section is actually a combination of totally knitted rows, totally purled rows and some combo rows. learned a few things: that middle section actually needs more knits or purles on the edges to give it shape. it only looks like it has shape now cuz i stretched it out before i took the picture. and the pattern in the right section isn't all that discernable I think because i didn't do enough rows before i went back to the total knit/purl rows. ok i realize all this may mean nothing to the like 2 people (at best) who actually bother to read it, but i know what i mean. lol. and you can just walk away knowing that i experimented and learned.  had to give this to tgp since i used 'her' yarn. now i have to make her another something with the other yarn she picked out. she did the cast on and then said 'now you have to do the other part'. she said this one's going to be a blanket for her baby doll. i told her i'd make her a washcloth and she agreed to that. i'm going to try that diamond pattern again...

what now...

this is just some randomness i whipped up the other night. i wanted to see what K1 P2 (knit 1 purl 2) looked like so i did it for a bit, as usual, it went haywire after a while. i got it somewhat back on track then it went VERY haywire and I decided to just plain ol' knit 'til i ran out of yarn. it was all just practice anyway. li'l abstract, yes? probably use it to clean the bathroom ;) so next, i write a paper. and call it a day. actually, tomorrow i'll probably buy more yarn and keep practicing. it's actually fun. and in my head i actually have other patterns in mind, as in i wonder what this combination will produce or if i want it to look like this, what combination of knits & purls would i need to do. so that's kinda cool. i really do think i might possibly attempt to consider making some Christmas presents for folks - how's THAT for noncommital! *grin* anyway, i think i've gone thru a nice process here, beginning, middle and at least pseudo-end and as such here ends the required journal-esque-ness of this blog. tho i do still think i'll continue to document my progress as far as the hobby goes... if only to upload pics. we shall see...

tackling a pattern: take 2

Here's the second attempt. If you look from the bottom up, you can see how nicely it started out...I was being carful. I had even caught a few problems in the making and was able to avert them or correct them immediately. I went through the whole pattern once and was going to call it a night - and I should have... But then I decided that it'd be small but i'd go through the whole sequence one more time and just finish the piece. I was excited I guess that it had been going well... A few lines in bad things started to happen... I think it's because I was getting tired. I didn't feel like I was being less careful *sigh* but apparently I was. Soooo about halfway thru the sequence, I think, I decided just to finish up before I did too much more damage. I'm disappointed. I know, I know, I juuust started knitting like 5 minutes ago. And I'm cool w/ mistakes and what not, I'm really just bummed cuz the first part went ok then the crash and burn. I should quit while I was ahead - lol. But anyway, there it be. 

so much for that... ;)

it may be because i'm running on li'l sleep but i decided that perhaps a fresh start is in order. I liked the idea of just continuing to work on the same piece until finally I got it to work out. Thought it'd be cool to look at it when it's all done and be able to trace my experience attempting to follow the pattern, blah blah blah - HA. On second thought, how about I just start anew? Yes, let's do that. So, tomorrow night maybe, I'll start over. I'll go that much more slowly, I might have felt the groove a little sooner than I should have, or blinked to long and a stitch got away from me. No idea. But I'll try to go slower so I'll, hopefully, make fewer mistakes and maybe catch them sooner and be able to double back and fix them. I'd done another couple of rows before I quit tonight and even tho I'm watching everything I'm doing, I'd get to the end of the row and there was rogue stitch or two. So, I just have to be more careful and try to see what I'm doing. I think that somehow something's going on at the back of the needle that I'm just not noticing... in any event, i WILL NOT let this pattern beat me!!! lol