Dishrags

Lately I've been knitting dishrags. I love them. They are easy mindless knitting and also something useful. I give them away to my family and friends, most recently to my grandmother and sister. Here is a picture of just a few of the dishcloths that I have made recently. I love the bright colors.

I think that I have been into making dishcloths recently because I became frustrated with a sweater I have been working on. The bottom part is stockingknit and I was able to knit along on that without any problems. But the bodice is a pattern and I should have looked more closely at the directions because this pattern contained a charted pattern. I prefer written directions. Something about words and abbreviations telling me to knit two together is so much easier. I don't know why. But this pattern was charted and I ran into a snag when I was trying to figure it out. I knitted through it several times and it never seemed to have enough stitches for the pattern or either it had too many. I knit it and took it out several times. I was frustrated to say the least and I seriously considered taking out the whole thing. But I simply but it away and began my dishcloth knitting.

But yesterday I wanted something more usefull to knit for myself. Now that my dishcloth supply for gifts was built back up, the mindless knitting was not so appealing anymore. So this morning I got up and got the sweater back out. And I started to knit and all of a sudden it worked. There were enough stitches and everything slanted in the right place. All of the yarn overs made increases where they were supposed to and it all worked together to make a pretty lace pattern. Just like the picture in the directions.

Now I don't know why everything all of a sudden started to work. Maybe something just clicked in my brain and it made sense. I don't know, it may eternally be a mystery, but there is one thing I thing I know for sure. I still prefer written directions over charts.

In other news I planted a garden. Here is my squash.

And my tomatos

Peppers and marigolds

And some of my flowers.

Spring is wonderful and I can't wait for my vegatables to grow so I can eat them.

Snow and the Knitting Olympics

It's snowing in Alabama!!! A rarity indeed. And the really rare part about it is that it may actually stick a little bit. Last time I remember snow sticking in Alabama was when I was in the 9th grade, way back in 1993. So this is pretty exciting. I took some pictures of my yard so you can see what it looks like.

My back yard



The church next to my house


My front yard and street


Another thing that is exciting is that the Olympics start today! I love the Olympics. But this year I am going to participate in the knitting Olympics. After thinking much I have decided that my challenge will be to knit a pair of socks. I know, I know, I don't really like to knit socks. But this pattern is a little challenging and I have lots of sock yarn. Its not really the socks themselves that I don't like it is the finishing part. Especially the Kitchener stitch. I also have a couple of other projects that I have to get done and so I am thinking that the socks will not take me very long.

So I am trying to decide which yarn to use. These are my options:




I am going to use a pattern from Knitty called Cable Net. Here is the link: http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall06/PATTcablenet.html



I also have a baby sweater that my sister wants me to crochet for a friend of hers. Here is the yarn for that.



I am not sure what pattern I am going to do yet, but crochet goes a lot faster than knitting. At least for me. So I don't think it will take me very long.

And I have some leftover yarn from a sweater that I want to do a scarf out of.



So here is the plan. I am going to knit the socks and then I am going to crochet the baby sweater. Then if time permits I am going to do the scarf. And hopefully I am going to get it all done within the time period. The socks are for the knitting Olympics. And the sweater is too I guess since I told my sister I would have it done by the 27th.

Get out of the way people this is going to be some serious knitting.

Left Handed Knitting in a Right Handed World

I knit a pair of socks and I think that they turned out pretty good. I have never knitted a pair of socks before although I knew how to do it. I have made plenty of things knitting in the round and did not doubt my ability to make socks I had just never done it before.
Well I knitted along with no problem until I came to the end of the toe and I had to do something that I now consider to be created just to torture me. The Kitchener stitch.
I am not only a self taught knitter, but I am left handed. This is something that has given me a few problems. I often have to remind myself that when I see instructions that talk about stitches on the right hand needle, that is the left hand needle for me. When in doubt I have found a few use full videos on YouTube that have helped quite a bit. But for some reason I have not found any left handed Kitchener stitch instructions.
I tried to reverse things and do it all left handed but it came out looking rather sloppy. So on the second sock I decided to try holding the tapestry needle in my right hand and doing it just like the right handed instructions show.
After wielding the needle a little uncomfortably with my right hand and having to force myself not to use my left hand to grab it, I completed the sock and it looked no different. I looks light years different from the picture in the instructions.
So I think that the problem lies with me. Maybe I need to practice. Or may I will just have to stick with toe up socks instead of heel down socks. Or maybe I will just never knit socks again. And while this statement might meet with shock to most other knitters out there, I can think of more enjoyable and useful things to knit. All because of the Kitchener stitch. I hate it.