Monday, January 14, 2008

The Shallow Learning Curve of Knitting

wow, I've learned a lot since I first cast on for one of the kids' ponchos back in September. I can actually understand how the stitches are supposed to look and identify mistakes and how to fix them (the best use of a crochet hook I've had so far).

Anyway, a quick chronology of my knitting thus far: I began with ponchos for the kids. Then I did one for me. I moved into spiral scarves. I had a couple failures before successes but I learned that a failure need not remain so. You can fix mistakes with creativity. If your spiral scarf is ridiculously long, simply seam it up the middle. It wasn't what you were expecting, but the result is nice. A parable for life, don't you think?

I'm currently in my shrug phase. I knit a mohair one that really didn't go the way it should. I changed the pattern and in my ignorance, made a lot of mistakes so that it just turned out funky. When I get to it, I'll wash it and block it (after first weaving in those threads I still haven't gotten to), then we'll see what we've got. I knit a flower to pin somewhere to cover some yarn sin.

Now, what now? I'm trying another shrug. I'm very interested in knitting flowers and I took an odd cupcake tangent whereby I acquired patterns and yarn and have now lost interest.

Oh, and I was thinking I'd try my hand at cables. Sometimes they intrigue me, sometimes I could care less.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You go girl!!! Try a cable hat pattern, you can get your fix making cable and still be finished before you lose interest. You may want to check out knitting books from the library. I saw in an archive blog that you enjoyed the free patterns from Lion Brand. Checking a book from the library is a great way to test it completely before you invest in it yourself. I've gotten a list of books off of Ravelry and then inter-library loaned them out. Enjoy, Michelle

Marjorie said...

Thanks. I did find a pattern in the Knit Picks catalog for a hat with cabling just around the brim, so I'm playing with that. I've tried a couple of times and still haven't gotten the hang, but I figure for every attempt, I'm inching towards realization!