Lessons, mosaics and socks, OH MY!

Whoop, whoop.

Sooo... Josh's knitting lesson went okay. He was doing wonderfully until I tried to explain binding off. I just couldn't make it clearly enough for him, so he got confused, frustrated and collapsed into a small ball at the foot of my bed (as predicted). I put his swatch off to the side in case he wants to pick it up again.

I finally finished grandpa's first sock, and took the opportunity to try and learn grafting again. It didn't work. Again. So I caved and used the three needle bind off for the toe (place stitches on holder, turn sock inside out, bind off). It's so much less stressful than grafting and finishes up with a nice, neat seam on the inside. Eventually I will have to face the evil kitchener stitch, but for now I'm sticking with this method.

The other day I took a walk up to the library and checked out Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs. I like the book, it helped me a lot with slip stitch color patterns, and it includes an "Uncharted Miscellany" chapter with some very pretty (and one very scary) stitch patterns. The down side to my discovery of the book, though, is that it inspired me to take up ANOTHER project. One that actually requires (GASP) assembly. It's just a bag, but all of my completed projects have been socks.

Ever since this god-awful heat set in I've been designing like crazy. There's a really pretty pink-and-cream skirt (knit with size 10 cotton and size one needles) floating around in my head. But until I get a lace pattern worked out for it, that's where it will stay. I would like to use a pretty chevron eyelet pattern, but I can't seem to get the pattern to repeat the way I want it to. Pfft.

Though I'm not sure how he felt about knitting...

Psh. Grandpa's socks are taking much longer than I anticipated. I'm still on the first, less than twenty rows done on the foot part. The first sock of my pair went so quickly, but I suppose that was because there were less stitches, and I was (of course) making them for myself. At least there haven't been any more problems or indecision.

Sometime tonight I'm giving Josh a knitting lesson. I'll probably just teach him the knit stitch, maybe the purl stitch... If he's not collapsed on the bed twitching out of sheer frustration. The lessons were a trade off. He agreed to let me teach him how to knit after I agreed to let him teach me some guitar. Not that I had no interest in learning guitar.

It's hard to blog at seven to three in the morning.

[Edit: 2:55am] Oh, and I bought myself a pair of yarn needles, zippers and a new (60 inch!) measuring tape the other day.

I need to find a mosaic pattern book for cheap.

Sock troubles

I just finished the first half of my pair of socks, and I can't find my god damned yarn needle to graft the toe. There might be some tapestry needles downstairs somewhere, but the fact that the needle (that I've had FOREVER, mind you) is missing is going to drive me insane until I find it.

The sock came out cute, though. I like the way the fabric sparkles ;B

But, will she actually post?

So... Yeah. A knit blog. I am a nerd, and I know it.

As I told Rea, I will kick off this blog with a wonderful list of things people ought to help me acquire:

• A newer, better, more secure computer.
• A newer, better, less stupid iPod.
• A college education.
• Knitting paraphernalia: Specifics coming eventually.
• A cleaner room with lots of space to store said knitting paraphernalia.
  

Works in Progress:

Two pairs of socks. One pair for me, and one pair for my grandfather's 70th birthday. Mine are coming along fine (about 75-80% done with the first sock), but my grandpa's seem to be giving me a smidge of trouble. First, I thought to to k1p1 rib then switch to k3p1, but I felt that the 3x1 was getting too lost in the fuzz of the woolease and making the fabric too thick, so I frogged. Switched to 1x1 and stockinette for the rest, but a few rows into the Stst I somehow turned the work and knit flat instead of circularly. Faced with the horrible thought of ripping AGAIN I gave up and decided to putt grandpa's socks down for a few days.

On the back burner (but hopefully not for too long) I've got a shrug-in-progress. A while back I bought a cute little purple shrug from H&M, and wanted to knit one in black to match my prom dress. So I started knitting, and about a third of the way through I found out that, because of Josh's stupid parents, I wouldn't be going to prom. Since I wasn't going to prom there was no reason for me to be in such a rush to finish it, so I started socks. Yay socks!


On another note, this entry has helped me realize that since I'm no longer a forum goer or bloggist (I DON'T CARE IF THAT'S NOT THE PROPER TERM!), my typing has become a bit rusty.