I finished my practice band for Coronet and I’m very very proud of myself! The cabling was the easy part (once I started reading the pattern correctly). But even though it’s easy, it sure is cool to watch those cables appear. Talk about feeling like magic! It’s great. I screwed up in a couple of places (forgot some rows in my repeats) and since it’s only a practice band, I decided to be lazy and not rip back and fix them. So some of the right hand cables are missing, but that really doesn’t bother me at all — I’m just so impressed with myself that I did cabling!

While the cabling was easy, the grafting kicked my ass. I must have stitched and ripped out a dozen times trying to get it figured out. I just was not seeing any of the instructions I found, until I finally found the set I actually used. (Which, irritatingly enough, were in the first book I looked for them — The Purl Stitch — but not in the index of the book. ARGH!) With good, clear instructions, it went a little easier. That is, until I realized (toward the end, of course!) that I had 16 stitches on one needle and 18 stitches on the other. ARGHHHHH again. I couldn’t bear the thought of ripping out one more time, so I sovled my problem by stitching two together one one needle and doing a M1 increase on the other needle. Not the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen, but by damn, it worked! I was really proud of myself for solving the problem. And I’m hoping that, like most things, now that I’ve practiced it once, the second rendition will be both easier and more attractive.

I also picked up the stitches around the band (another first for me) and started knitting the hat in the round (yet another first — this is why this is such a good pattern for me!). I’m really just doing this for the practice — I’m going to run out of this yarn, for one thing, and for another the DPNs I have are in the wrong size for the hat, so it’s too small. But it’s giving me my first experience with DPNs, which while it’s going okay, has convinced me that I’m definitely going to do as much of the hat as I can on a circular needle. I’m not having much fun with the DPNs and I’m fairly convinced that I’m going to have ladders. But picking up the stitches was easy, though I cheated and used a crochet hook.

We are pretty pathetic people who have absolutely nothing to do on New Years Eve (in fact, my husband and son are already asleep; I only got up because I can’t sleep!) so I am probably going to find something to watch on the TV and knit to ring in the new year. I made a knitting goal for the new year (I don’t make resolutions; I make goals.) — to knit at least one sweater. That’s what I want to accomplish. I even have ideas about what sweater I want that to be, though nothing definite yet. I actually think I’m going to start with a sweater for my boy, because I think that will be a good warm up.

Okay, off to knit. Probably tomorrow I will have pictures of my completed band. No promises, though.

Well, after figuring out how to do the provisional cast on, and being utterly unable to sleep yet again last night, I started my practice band for Coronet last night. (Being who I am, I know it is better for me to do a practice round before I start trying to do this for real, even if it’s just for my own stress level). It turns out that this so much a good thing. I had to rip out both repeats that I got finished last night — not because of any problems with the cables, which are going suprisingly smoothly, but because I read the pattern wrong. Stupid!

Anyway, it’s all good now and I haven’t had any problems today. I’ve got four repetitions done. I feel so accomplished!

The pictures don’t show the cabling very well, but they’re all I’ve got:

I am having SO MUCH FUN!!

Garter stitch scarves are boring. Like, brain numbing. Now I know why I didn’t start with this — because I knew it wouln’t be interesting enough to keep my interest and if I’d started with this, I wouldn’t still be knitting. The thing is, now I’ve started this and I want to finish it because I think the product will be fun and nice to have — it’s cheerful with it’s big yarn and jewel tones — but I might die of boooooredom before I get it finished!

I’m telling myself it will be good mindless knitting to have to do during times where I don’t want to think about what I’m doing. Too bad I can’t take it to my staff development days next week, which is what I’d really like to do. But maybe I can get some work done on it during my doctor’s visits next week. What better to do at the neurologist’s office than knit?

So I’ve decided on my next project, which will be decidedly NOT boring. I’m going to knit Coronet from Knitty since my son seems to have appropriated my other soccer hat. This hat will give me my first go round with cables, and I really like the way the cabled band is done separately from the rest of the hat, so if it takes me a few tried I won’t get so frustrated. Plus, I’ll get to try all kinds of new things that I want to learn how to do: kitchener stitching, picking up stitches, knitting in the round and on dpns, and oh yeah, a provisional cast-on (I didn’t even know what a provisional cast on was, though I had a pretty good idea just from the name. I was able to find out though. I’ve currently got Vogue Knitting from the library, and was able to find a technique in there. I think I’m going to have to spring for this book at some point, since I can only keep it from the library for like 6 weeks at a time).

I hope I can do this. Actually, I know I can; I just hope I can do it with a minimum of cussing, screaming, throwing things, and having to fight homicidal impulses.

I’m wondering now how fragile my knitting is. I put my new hat on my son to take a photo, and he is quite enamored of it and didn’t want to give it up. Of course, being two, he can’t just leave it on his head — he’s constantly pulling on it, stretching, taking it off and throwing it around then putting it back on, pulling it down over his face — basically doing anything he can come up with to abuse it.

I’m feeling pretty protective of it. I know that’s silly, but . . . I worked hard on the hat, and like I said before, it still kind of feels like magic to me that it turned into a real, actual hat. I’m afraid it’s fragile. I need someone to tell me that my child isn’t going to tear up my first knitting project if I let him wear it!

Now that I’ve got a little more time, I’ll put up photos of my finished projects.

First, my bag:

My pleasure from this bag is completely out of proportion with the bag itself. But, honestly, it almost seems like magic to me that I started with yarn and I ended with that. I know there was a lot of work in between (after all, I did it) but still . . . it just kind of seems like magic.

And my hat:

It sure doesn’t look like much just sitting there on the table. Maybe once he gets home I’ll have my son model it — it looks really cute on him, though a little big.

It’s a wee bit smaller than I’d like on my head — I wish I’d made the brim a bit longer. Oh well, I’m still going to happily wear it, and I’ll know for next time.

I didn’t know I wanted to be a knitter.

I read forums at a community of mothers where a lot of the women are knitters, and I’ve been lurking with one group that all seem to have found knitting as a hobby. I really enjoyed reading what they had to write about it — all this ecstasy over yarn! It seemed pretty interesting. I used to cross-stitch as my “mindless” something-to-do-with-my-hands relaxation hobby, but I’m finding that difficult to do with a toddler in the house. (Also, I never really liked the finished product of my cross-stitching. I’ve got all these finished pieces, but none of them are even framed, since they’re not the kind of thing I want in my house. They’re just not “me.” I liked the process, not the product.) So since I didn’t have enough hobbies in my life (haha, right?) I thought maybe I’d give it a go. Maybe it would be a hobby where I liked the product as well as the process. So I ran to Michael’s and bought myself a “how to knit” kit (and hey, a “how to crochet” kit too just for the hell of it), plus some pretty maroon acrylic yarn.

Funny, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it might be! I soon threw down the “how to knit” book in disgust and thought “Oh, I’ll do the crochet, I’ve done it before (yeah, so what if it was 20 years ago?), it’ll be easy.” Well, the “how to crochet” book soon joined the how to knit one on the floor. But the truth is — I was already hooked. Maybe it was just sheer stubborness; I don’t know — but whatever it was, I got bit by the bug and bit hard.

The next day found me back at Michael’s picking up The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knitting and Crocheting. I pretty much gave up on the crochet part, because what I really wanted to was knit, and dammit, there are a bazillion people in the world who knit, it IS NOT TOO HARD FOR ME. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. And it wasn’t. Eventually, I was able to produce a nice pretty square of garter stitch, and not too much later, a nice pretty curly square of stockinette. Oh yeah, I was definitely hooked.

When I start to do something, I tend to get obsessive about it. My knitting library has grown by leaps and bounds. I’ve started to examine all the sweaters that I own — and even the ones my friends own — to see how they’re constructed and think about whether I could do that. I discovered knitty.com and went back and read every single back issue “cover-to-cover.” I found knitting forums.

And, oh yeah, I knit.

For a long time I only knit squares and triangles, just practicing stitches. I didn’t even keep them — mostly just ripped them out and reknit the yarn, over and over until the yarn was too raggedy to use, then I’d start with a new piece. I used my maroon acrylic yarn for a while, then got some Lion Brand Wool-Ease in a lovely blue color to practice with.

I finally decided I was ready to do something real, and of course, being me I couldn’t just decide to do a scarf. No, I decided to do a bag. I picked up some cheap 100% cotton variegated blue yarn and started knitting “Zeeby’s Bag” from Stitch n Bitch. Of course, I didn’t follow the pattern exactly (that would be too easy, right?) but I only modified it a little. Left off the pocket. I figured I’d use it for my son’s daycare bag (which is why I chose cotton — gotta be able to go in the washer with no worries!). Before I finished that, I also decided I needed a hat for soccer season. So I got some more Wool-Ease in my school color and started a hat (from a pattern from the Complete Idiot’s Guide). Before I finished that, I decided maybe I really did need a scarf after all — so got some chunky yarn and big needles and started the most boring project ever — a plain garter stitch scarf. Are you counting? Yep, that’s three projects before I’d finished even one. All started less than 2 weeks after I picked up knitting needles for the very first time in my life.

The good news is I finished both the hat and the bag and I’m really rather proud of both, though my seaming leaves a LOT to be desired. I’m a pretty good way through the scarf, though not anywhere near completion yet. I’m already looking for my next project.

And that’s how I got here. I know you’re all so very glad that I came.