"Branching" out

Last month I bought some lovely Brittany birch double pointed needles; I immediately changed out the WIPs off of the loooong metal needles, even though they were flat projects. I like the shorter, lighter needles incomparably better. They're comfortable, light, and they don't bump Chris if he's sitting by me (or snag a blanket or something).

That said, I immediately started seeing gaps in their utility. For instance, I tried to make a market bag, but it called for a circular needle--and for good reason. The stitches would barely fit on my 7.5" needles, and every single DPN started with a yarn over. How the hell do you do a yarn over when you've just started with the needle? I figured it out, but managed to keep dropping them anyway.

Notwithstanding the dropped yarnovers, which are a special case, I actually took to DPNs pretty fast, I think. No strange V-shaped ladders at my joins: all-in-all, I like them a lot. I haven't been poking myself. I did realize that I've been wrapping my purls backwards and all of a sudden I'm using a WIP to test out different purls, which is making the gauge fluctuate in the middle of a stinking row, since, until I realized that I had twisted every knit alternating rows (because a backwards wrapped purl makes an Eastern-oriented stitch, which, knitted through the front loop twists it). I suck at purling, all of a sudden. I may actually finish the rest of the project with the backwards wrapped purls to make the texture consistent (aside from the hesitatingly knitted half-inch I did today). ...However! I do realize why knitting was so much harder than purling to this point: I was knitting twisted stitches, as a matter of fact every single one in stockinette. The only purl I know that DOESN'T twist the stitch starts with the yarn behind the left needle and has the working needle come behind and through, grab and turn. But pulling it through is very hard. I'm back to throwing. Shit.

Then there are socks. Apparently light, convenient, addictively fun immediate gratification, I however kept seeing project pages calling for sizes 0,1,2. My current set only goes as small as size 3 (3.25mm) of which I accidentally ordered 2 sets, and although I thought I corrected that, in the final tally I received two sets but was only billed for one. Hooray for my luck with customer service, huh? However, they didn't sell smaller needles... and now I'm left wondering how much my gauge will change from 2mm to 3.25mm. A lot more than I'd rather, probably.

So I need some smaller needles: sock needles. And in general, I'd rather buy something I'm going to continue using, and although I would like a few more smaller sets of DPNs, the wood is just a bit too grabby to see myself using once I speed (back) up. So I'm looking at Knit Picks' nickel "sock set", or at least one or two sizes thereof. But they're so damn close in size that I can't be sure which size to get. If I don't get the set, I would probably end up getting all of them due to my nagging lust for completed sets. (The Harmony wood is too busy for my taste, so I would get Surina or Brittany Birch if I were planning to get wood... which I still might. The Brittanys come in 5" and the Surina comes in a darker wood, from Fabulous Yarns, and I Really Like the look of the darker wood.)

Honestly, since the plain vanilla sock is stockinette or ribbing, but in the round, where a previous row's backwards wrapped purl doesn't really affect this row's knit, I'm sorely tempted to begin a pair of socks for myself or Chris or the girls, in Sport weight or something, and just have a few twisted stitches or ktbl where the ribbing ends. What do you think?

Since I know that nobody's out there, it's mostly a question for my subconscious. I think I'll buy sport weight in a color that doesn't show mistakes, maybe black Stroll, and use my size 3 needles. I knit sort of tight anyhow.

(Next time: 5 whole fleeces and fiber prep: carding vs. combing, roving vs. top, washing vs. scouring, hand dying and spinning... all in a Northern Californian summer???)

Still going

okay, well, something must be working because after I made the Hometown scarf (with Hometown USA, a super chunky, super cheap acrylic), I have been thinking of myself as "a knitter" rather than a dabbler.

doing knitted gifts for my friend Joseph and my mom for their birthdays. For Joseph, the Palindrome mentioned before, in Forest Floor; we stood in Walmart and picked it out. For my mom, fingerless mitts, with a ribbed wrist and a short row thumb, in a yarn that Anna gave me that I have no idea what it is, but it's heathered rose pink.

The half-life of scarves

I have a pretty scarf in the making. It seems like it's taking longer and longer, but it's just because I'm not doing enough at a time. This scarf is definitely visualizable as a scarf. It's 7" wide and nearly 2' long. My younger one, who just turned 2, wants to wrap it around her neck all the time just to test it out (I don't take the needle out and it scares me when she won't let go; I'm afraid she'll pull the needle out and I'll lose a row or two.

To recap, I started knitting on December 12th, the day after my 26th birthday, as a whim because I liked the yarn and wanted something to do with my time. For some reason, it stuck; maybe because I can put it down when I'm bored and pick it up when I'm really bored. :D

I get to see my knitting IRL friend Anna tomorrow; the day after that, she's getting married. I don't know how long it will be until I see her again, since she and her fiance aren't sure where they're going to live after they graduate. He had a possibility of Oregon or something, which would be a LOT closer than Florida or Alabama.

After this, I want to start the Irish Hiking Scarf for Joseph in hunter green or dark green. I'm thinking about buying Caron Simply Soft in Pine or Sage instead of using my Red Heart Super Saver in Hunter Green. Worries: that I won't have a long enough scarf with the 315 yards of Caron as opposed to the 360 yards of Red Heart. OTOH, when I try to use the Red Heart, it doesn't stretch into place like I'm used to acrylic doing.

After that, I don't know if I want to stick to scarves. I want to make a sweaterdress for Sophia, but it takes so long that I don't know if I can before she outgrows it, now that I've started on the matching scarf first. I'm looking at gloves sort of longingly, but frankly that's out of my reach for now. Maybe in 6 months.

Progress

I've actually been working, a lot, on this scarf. I'm up past the second row of flowers and it's a good 12-13 inches long. As I work, I'm constantly thinking about my next few projects, though; I feel as though I should have finished this a few days ago. Of course I couldn't, I've had too many other things to do. Saturday night I had to frog back an entire inch as I had picked up 2 extra stitches right at the edge in one row, but I was back to where I had been by Sunday afternoon. Seriously, I wish I was a LOT faster; I want to go ahead to the next thing and have this DONE already! When I'm not daydreaming about the next project (and sometimes when I am), I try holding the yarn slightly differently. I've had a bit of soreness in my right arm and pinky/ring finger, so most of my attention goes toward a way of holding it that will prevent soreness.

Knitting: Casting on for the first time

Sunday I was struck by a whim to get something from the fabric section of Walmart and actually accomplish something with my unemployment. So I picked up a couple balls of yarn, a set of knitting needles, and a fifty cent pattern book. I taught myself to cast on that night, and in the next few days, I've accomplished something amazing-a 7"x7" swatch of pretty fabric (it's got a color pattern built in, so there's a couple stripes of pink, then a stripe of rosebuds, then more pink, etc). I'm calling it a scarf at this point, because I don't want it to be simply a practice square or a dishtowel or whatever. Both of my daughters are claiming it :D.

Where You Begin

So I've been looking at all these blogs and posts on forums about creative people, and I have to wonder, "how do they do it"? Not just how they do the specific craft, because that part is easy enough to search for tutorials on, or to ask questions about, or to just pick some supplies up and start messing around. What I want to know, really, is how they can keep their focus on one project long enough, even just a several-hour-long project, to see the thing through to completion.

For me, if I can't finish something in 15-20 minutes, or have a reasonable partial goal ahead of me, I walk away. Sometimes I run.