What is this place?
In December 2004, I re-learned how to knit. This page tells
about my knitting "journey," for lack of a less-sentimental term.
Tell me more about "The Journey"
There's a group of people at my job who knit once a week during
lunch their break. I heard about it early on and was vaguely
interested. Then I was specifically invited to join the group
by one of my co-workers who suggested that I could come and make
origami (another hobby) with them if I wasn't interested in
knitting. I decided I was interested in knitting, so I decided
I would re-learn.
I did all sorts of arts and crafts when I was a kid. Among
other things, my mom taught me a little knitting and a little
crochet. In particular, I started two projects and then
abandoned them. (One has been finished now, and the other will
remain abandoned, since now I've "re-purposed" the yarn that was
supposed to finish it.)
One summer several years later, I was doing arts and crafts with
a girl I was babysitting, and she showed me how to knit again.
We didn't make anything, but my hands remembered the movements.
***
And then, in December 2004, I decided to learn to knit again.
I wandered shyly into the fancy downtown Princeton yarn shop called
"Pins and Needles" and bought a pair of the latter. I had
already bought one skein of acrylic (cheap craft) yarn from the
dollar store. Total expenditure so far: about $5.50.
Then I sat down in front of my computer and looked for knitting
instructions online. I squinted at several sets of illustrated
instructions, and figured out how to cast on. Then I squinted
at several sets of illustrated instructions, and figured out the
knit stitch. And then, my hands remembered. A scarf was
born.
It was a very, very wide scarf. I had cast on a lot
of stitches, because I was practicing. And then I just started
knitting them. And kept on knitting them. Until I got to
the end of maroon skein #1. Since the scarf looked about
one-third finished, I bought two more skeins of yarn (+$2.00), one
green and another maroon. And I kept knitting. When I
finished, this is what I had.
In January 2005, I visited my parents in Atlanta (warmly
enscarfed), and raided the stash of yarn, needles, and abandoned
projects at their house. I also took with me a knitting book
that was not terribly interesting (why would I want to knit kids'
clothes?) except for some basic instructions in the back.
Also, I acquired another knitting book: It was supposed to be a
birthday present, but mom let me see it by accident, so she gave it
to me. I enjoyed looking through it, but the stuff looked a
little over my head. Or, at least, the instructions did.
So I set the book aside to drool over, and the next project I
worked on was my ancient pastel "scarf" (also very very wide) on
huge plastic needles. I had added to it during the summer that
I learned to knit from a babysittee, but the part I added was
terrible. I decided to take it out. This was a little
tricky, because I didn't want to rip it all apart and start
from the beginning. I had some help from another knitter, and
got back to where I could knit the project again. I ran out of
yarn very quickly, and didn't have anything that remotely resembled
a scarf. It was very wide and not very tall, and, truth be
told, it wasn't even very rectangular. What do I do
with such a thing? I thought.
Here's what I did with it:
I call it a "cowl-necked sweater without the sweater."
I made it by attaching the short ends to make a circle, and then
attaching the long edges to make a tube-circle.
***
I decided I needed a knitting book. I went to the
bookstore, Christmas gift certificate in hand, fully expecting to
come back with a useful tome. I spent a couple of hours
looking at a couple dozen knitting books, and didn't buy one.
I found too many that I wanted, for one thing, and furthermore, they
all started to look the same after a while. I did write down
the names of the ones I liked best. They were:
- Some mini Vogue knitting books (Vogue has published a ton
of knitting books)
- Hip to Knit by Swartz
- Yarn Girls' Guide to Simple Knits by Carles & Jacobs
- Beginner's Guide to Knitting by Dupernex
- Ultimate Knitted Tee by Bryant and Klein
- Domino Knitting by Hoxbro
- Knitter's Bible by Crompton
- Knitting for Dummies
Plan B was to check out a knitting book at the library.
There weren't nearly as many to pick from as at the
bookstore. But I did find Domino Knitting! I
checked it out and began another project.
The domino method required more looking on the internet for basic
stitch instructions, but I managed. (It's annoying how so many
knitting books have some instructions, but don't include complete
instructions. Every book seems to make at least some
assumptions about the reader's knowledge of knitting.)
Parenthetical complaints aside, the method is pretty nifty.
You make little squares, like these:
You can knit them onto each other as you go, so that you wind up
with something bigger made out of different squares. Sort-of
like a quilt. All the squares have that funny diagonal like in
the middle, because the way you knit them is to start by knitting a
row that's twice as long as one side of the square (picture this as
the bottom edge and the left edge). Then you make each row shorter
and shorter, until you've knitted up to the top right corner, and
your row is only one stitch long. Then you're done.
So, I made what I decided was a pillow front out of nine of these
connected squares.
I had seen a nifty stitch pattern called "seed stitch" in a
borrowed knitting book, and decided I'd try that for the back.
After trying to be very clever and messing up about three times in a
row, I managed to get the back right.
***
I decided to try making a hat from a pattern that came on
someone's yarn label. I had bought 6 more acrylic yarns at the
dollar store. (Running total spent: $13.50). Using one
of these skeins, I made the hat without checking the gauge.
That basically means I had no idea how big it would turn out to be,
or whether it would turn out to fit. It turned out a little on
the big side, which was disappointing, but it gave me practice doing
ribbing.
***
I decided to buy Knitting for Dummies. I was tired
of not having a book with BASIC instructions for how to do all the
things that other books assume you know. I didn't want to
follow goofy instructions on labels or have to look up miscellaneous
diagrams online. I wanted a real reference. This book
explains everything. And it has some projects in it, so
you can apply the basic skills to some neat stuff.
One idea it has for making something basic is a purse made from a
rectangle. So I made this purse. The idea was to use up
some little scraps of the cotton yarn from the domino pillow
project. I had to deal with a bunch of little pesky ends.
I learned how to make I-cord for the strap. I made the tassels
without looking at any instructions.
Then I started to make another scarf to use up some purple and
pink yarn. I used them together because I didn't like the
color of the pink by itself. Also, the pink yarn behaved
better when knit with the purple. Unfortunately for me, the
purple ran out long before the pink, and the thing wasn't long
enough for a scarf. It became another purse. Oh well!
***
Another early birthday present from Mom! Awesome!
***
I'm working on making some free-standing sleeves. Or one
sleeve, anyway. I'm still working on using up the pesky pink
yarn. This time I've combined it with some red stuff, and I
know I'll have enough to finish the one sleeve. I'm hoping
it'll fit okay. I've made a very tall trapezoid, and I
measured my arm in several spots to see how wide to make it, but I'm
still nervous about how it'll fit when I sew it up. The
measurements for sleeves in my knitting books weren't any help,
because most of those sleeves weren't meant to be tight enough to
cling to my arms by themselves - they were meant to be attached to
sweater shoulders. There are some directions for just sleeves
in the Dummies book, but they gave the directions in terms of rows,
not inches, and the instructions were for a different kind of yarn
and a different kind of needles than the ones I'm using! So
I'm all on my own for this one. We'll see how it goes.
[Time elapses.]
I finished knitting the flat sleeve and sewed it into a tube.
It was too loose. I undid the tube and knitted some more
sleeve to make it tighter. It was still too loose in the
elbow. I was annoyed. The yarn is really nice, so I
wanted my project to be really nice. It wasn't.
So, I took it apart again. This time, I unknitted the
entire thing and rolled the yarn into a ball. I started again,
this time using four double-pointed aluminum needles. This was
a new skill. It came easily. I have now finished one
sleeve. But, because there is yarn enough to make another
matching sleeve, the project is not finished.
[Time elapses.]
Arm 2, and thus the project, is finished!
***
I'm also making a swatch-type thing. I tried out a scarf
pattern from the Hip Knits book. It's kind of a pain,
though, and not very satisfying. I don't think it'll be good
as a scarf, either, because the back is pretty bad. So I'm
going to make a small pillow thing.
[Time elapses.]
I have finished knitting the pillow thing's front and back.
But I need to go buy some stuff that smells good to go inside, so
the project is not finished.
My friend Maia thought of me when shopping at Michaels, and got
me some Apple Cinnamon potpourri. I still have to sew a pouch
for it and sew it in.
[Time elapses.]
Sachet is finished!
***
Finished project: scrap belt with decorative buttons.
***
Current project: cable throw out of cheap acrylic yarn!
Cable #1
Cable #2
Cables #1-3
For cable #3, I
combined the intarsia technique with the cable pattern to make the
twisty bits of the cables different colors. One's maroon,
one's that dark blue color, and the background is grey. It's
really a pain to do, and the reverse side looks awful, but the front
is pretty impressive. All the same, I couldn't wait to go back to
using one ball of yarn rather than a bunch of pesky dangling
bobbins that have to be spliced constantly.
Cables #1-4
Cable #5
Cable #6 is green honeycomb. Cable #7 is a narrow five-strand
weave in grey.
***
I made another pillow form for the nine patch pillow, and used
its pillow form to make this pillow, from fat chenille, for my
brother.
***
[Red chenille pillow.]
***
Project Gallery
***
Library & Bibliography
Allen, Pam. Knitting for Dummies. New York:
Wiley, 2002. Paperback, 358 pages with index. Color
insert.
Crompton, Claire. The Knitter's Bible. Newton
Abbot, UK: David & Charles, 2004. Hardcover, 160 pages with
index. Full color throughout.
Dahlstrom, Carol Field, editor. Hip Knits: 65 Easy
Projects from Hot Designers. Des Moines, IA: Meredith,
2004. Paperback, 192 pages. Full color throughout.
***
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