Simple – it was the stuff.

Stuff is important. Stuff keeps things interesting. I’m of the opinion that many people get into certain hobbies purely because of the stuff that accompanies those hobbies. Some guys like to build things with wood – and to do this they need all sorts of woodworking stuff – hammers, nails, power saws, drills, tape measures. With golf it’s the same thing – there’s a metric crapload of stuff – clubs, bags, balls, tees, markers, shoes, more clubs, etc. Ditto for people who are into cars – there are all sorts of aftermarket add-on parts and upgrades and tools that go along with working on a car.

Now I’m (obviously) speaking from a guy’s perspective, but I have a feeling that this isn’t a gender-specific thing. C’mon gals, admit it – you’re drawn to stuff too. I’ve seen plenty of proof of this. Into art? There’s miles of aisles of art supplies. Into the outdoors? Well, REI and similar outdoorsy superstores are packed to the gills with all manner of neat stuff.

Stuff is what keeps things interesting. If interest in your craft or hobby starts to wane, there’s a simple fix – get new stuff. This will provide a boost of interest, as you integrate the new stuff in with the existing. A new power tool will have a woodworker or car guy (or gal) drooling about what he or she can use it for. A new brush will have a painter imagining the possibilities. I’m sure you get my drift.

So I’m not going to lie to you. It was the stuff that finally hooked (no pun intended) me into knitting.

Look at all the stuff that goes along with the craft of knitting. I’m not just talking about stash, because yarn is really a hobby in itself (I’m looking at you, spinners).

• Needles – in addition to coming in 86 different sizes and lengths, there are single pointed needles, double-pointed needles, and circular needles. Then there are all those funky needles that I see in the store but aren’t quite sure what they are for. To me, they look broken, because they are bent all funny, but some say that they are essential for cabling.
• Notions – Holy crapola, does this term cover a lot of stuff. Stitch markers, of which there are probably literally tens of thousands of different styles (thanks to those of you out there that make your own). Tape measures, scissors, sewing needles, stitch counters, pom-pom makers, etc etc etc.
• Books – the knitting book section of the local bookstore has exploded in recent years. I know this because DW owns a copy of nearly everything written about yarn or knitting in the last 5 years. Pretty soon, there won’t be enough room in the bedroom for, say, me. It’ll all be books (and stash, but that goes without saying). 
• Magazines – see books.
• Yarn – don’t get me started on yarn. 

For years, I sat and tended my various hobbies, not really noticing all the stuff that DW was accumulating. Then one birthday, she received a set of Knit Picks needles – you know, the interchangeable circular ones? I looked at those and thought – cool! Hot-swappable needles. Then I cracked open one of her needle cases and was awed by the sheer number and variety of needles. Then I saw some patterns mocked up on graph paper. Hmm. I slowly started to get it. Instead of walking past a pile of stash, I found myself actually looking at it, and, sometimes, actually feeling a skein or two.

Once I comprehended the sheer magnitude of the stuff that accompanies knitting, I was sold. And that’s my story.

So if you’re interest in knitting as a hobby is on the wane, my suggestion is simple – get some new stuff! Is creating balls of yarn a drag? Get a ball-winder and a yarn swift! Tired of your old wooden needles? Get some shiny new steel ones with a greased lightning supercharger built in! Neat-o! New Stuff! The joy is back.

I already had the knit stitch down – it was that pesky purl stitch that had me flummoxed. After looking at countless diagrams in countless books, and several videos of varying quality on the Interwebs, and practicing with some k2p2 ribbing for several rounds, I think I’ve figured out the purl stitch. And you know what? I think I actually enjoy purling more than knitting. Go figure.

As an aside, it really is amazing how many knitting videos there are out there. Some of them are very well done, and quite helpful. Others are simply dreadful. Now I’m not out to bash anyone who puts a how-to video on the ‘net, because I know that you are trying to be helpful. But if you’re really keen on teaching someone to knit, and you want them to actually learn how to knit, an out-of-focus video that looks like it was shot from someone across the street, with audio that sounds like it was recorded under water – it’s just not gonna cut it.

My sock project no longer looks like a sea urchin

Yeah – so I’m done with DPNs for now. Right now, I’m a circular boy. I’m actually attempting to do my experimental sock on a single circular needle, as described in the  book 2-at-a-time socks, by Melissa Morgan-Oakes. I’m knitting up the sample toddler sock that is explained right in the first chapter.

I used circs while I was teaching myself continental, and the entire experience was just so much more enjoyable than with the DPNs. 

OK – enough blogging for now – time to get back to my little sock.

After doing a round of k2p2 ribbing on my test sock, I see that my knit stitches all lean one way and my purl stitches all lean the other way. I don’t like this. The Petey style of knitting is not working for me.

Starbucks has built a business around the fact that people find comfort in familiarity. Every single Starbucks has the same interior design features, the same menu, the same comfy chairs. It’s nice to be able to go to a Starbucks in any city and be familiar with your surroundings.

What does this have to do with knitting? Well, as a beginning knitter, I would like to surround myself with familiarity. Knitting is tricky enough without trying to follow the path that’s lesser traveled. I want to be able to show someone a WIP on the needles and not have them flinch or turn up their nose because it’s unfamiliar to them. If I should make a mistake, I would like to be able to solicit help without being told “you’re doing it the wrong way – I can’t help you with that.”

And so, I’ve decided to teach myself to knit continental style the proper way. I’ve already got the knit stitch down, so now I just need to learn that pesky purl stitch. I’ve been peering at countless videos on YouTube and elsewhere, and now I just need to teach my fingers to do it.

As I mentioned, my new project is to learn how to knit a sock. I was advised that since my feet are ginormous, I should not start by knitting socks for myself. Rather, I should first knit socks for a much smaller human, in order to master the techniques necessary. Once I’ve got the moves down, then I can attempt to create socks for my massive footsies.

I couldn’t argue with that logic, so I cast on 48 stitches. I’m going to be knitting on size 4 needles, so I cast onto a size 6 needle, remembering that otherwise my stitches will be waaaay too tight. Well, it was a nice idea, anyways. But I’ll get to that in a bit.

So many sticks!

I decided (for some unknown reason) to try to knit the sock on double-pointed needles as opposed to two circular needles. Now I’m only on my second round, but I’m starting to regret my decision. There are so many effing needles! The result of which being that I spend very little time knitting, and very much time staring at my work in utter confusion.

First off, I transferred my 48 stitches to 4 DP needles. By my math, that’s 12 apiece. Great. Once I did that, I stared at my four bestitched needles for a good long while, trying to figure out what to do next. I had no idea how to connect them into a “circle” and start knitting. Lady was no help here. She just kind of chortled. Eventually I got all the needles arranged in a square and started on my first round.

Tighter than a frog’s ass

Somehow, despite my careful planning and good intentions, I have ended up with some mighty tight stiches. I’m only two rounds in and I can barely get these fairly pointy needles where they need to be. Is that some side effect of knitting on DPs? I dunno. I think it probably has more to do with the fact that by nature I knit very tightly, and I was paying attention to deciphering DP knitting instead of remembering to keep the stitches loose.

On top of all that, I just realized that I’m not putting any ribbing into these rounds, so the cuff of this sock is going to be excellent for completely cutting off circulation to the foot.

Ah well, that’s why this is a practice sock. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn something new, and right now I’m learning a bunch!

Lady is out of town for the weekend, with DD. Girl Scout campout. It just so happens that I’ve got a hankering to knit, and it won’t wait until she gets back tomorrow afternoon.

I have been eyeing her stash for the past few days. No, wait. That’s not true. Her stash is constantly within sight, since it has taken over several rooms of our house. So I suppose that I should say that over the past few days, I’ve been taking an interest in her stash, occasionally picking up a skein here or there and wondering if it would be good for a pair of socks.

Now she has said on occasion that I should go “shopping” in her stash, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a euphemism. What she means is that instead of going to a yarn shop to get my yarn, she is (somewhat) willing to part with a skein or two (three is too much) from her stash (stay away from the good stuff).

Last night, I decided on a sock pattern. I’ll be attempting A Good, Plain Sock from the Yarn Harlot’s Knitting Rules. Now, once I decide on something, I get very instant-gratification about it. I want to start the project NOW.

Which leads us to this morning. I walked over to the nearest pile of sock yarn, looked it over, and grabbed a skein. I took one that I knew she wouldn’t be too attached to. One of those magic stripes sport weight skeins. I then opened up Lady’s binder o’ needles and grabbed me some circular 4s.

I proceeded to cast on (after re-teaching myself the long-tail) and am currently knitting up a swatch.

As I see it, one of several things will happen to me when Lady gets home and sees what I have done:

1. I will be praised for my initiative, my spendthriftness, and for once again taking an interest in her favorite pastime.

2. I will be greeting with mixed feelings. She’ll be happy that I’m knitting, but suspicious of the stash violation. My get out of jail free card will have been played. Next time, I’ll be in serious trouble.

3. I will immediately become a pincushion for all 3,206 needles in her collection.

What do you all think? I probably won’t die for my crimes, right? Right??

Note to Self

When attempting a long-tail cast on, keep in mind the following key points:

1. It is called the long-tail cast on for a reason. Make sure that your tail is long enough. Don’t be afraid to over-estimate.

2. Once you’re done casting on, you are actually going to have to get needles into those stitches, so don’t make them crazy tight like you always do. Actually, now that I think about it, I remember a tip for this. The tip is to cast onto a needle that is one size larger than you will knit with. Once you’ve cast on, transfer the stitches to the smaller needle and go to town. I should probably start doing this, except that I should probably go up two sizes.

I’d like to turn that around a bit though. I have been reading some knitting books, and am ready to jump back into the fray.

But first, allow me to update you on my hat project. It’s done!

Yes, it took me a while, but I was able to finish it in December, when my wife decided that she didn’t want to look at it in its unfinished state any longer and finished off the rest of the decreases and everything else. It was a holiday gift from her – my finished hat. I didn’t see her do it, but I’m guessing that it took her all of ten minutes to bang out the last 20 or so rows. At my pace, those 20 rows would have taken me, oh, about 40 weeks.

So I’ve knitted my first hat, and I’m taking full credit for it, even though I only knit about 80% of the thing. I will have to post a glamour shot of me in my hat sometime soon.

Next

I’ve been putting some thought into what I’d like to make next. Living in southern California renders a lot of standard knitting projects fairly useless. I mean, how many woolen hats can I really own? A scarf? Complete waste of time for me. I’d like to make myself a nice sweater, since I enjoy wearing them in the “winter”, but my skillz aren’t quite up to snuff yet.

So what I’ve decided to knit next is a pair of socks. Socks are perfectly useful no matter where you live, and they seem like they would be a good next step to take. I just finished reading Knitting Rules by the Harlot, and I’m thinking that I’ll try out her simple sock pattern. According to the book, you can use any yarn, and any size needles, so I’ll be spending the next little while figuring out exactly how I’m going to attack this project.

Because I’m a stubborn male, and have that tendency to eschew asking for assistance or directions, I’m going to try to shed the training wheels and barrel down the hill myself, without asking DW for help.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.

Work has been kicking my butt lately. Such is the life when working at a DotCom startup. By the time I get home and get the kiddos into bed, I barely have the brain capacity to sit down and stare slack-jawed at the boob-tube. No knitting. No blogging.

We have a trip to New York planned for this winter, so I do have a deadline for my hat.  I’m about 6 rows into the decreases now, with perhaps another 20 rows to go. I dunno. I have to check the pattern again.

The hat will be completed before my trip. This, I vow.

Last night, I knit whilst watching Hell’s Kitchen and The Daily Show on the ol’ DVR. I am now very nearly to the point where I will start the decreases. That means that I could have a finished hat in the not-too-distant future. Yay.

Oh yes – and now for a tale of trickery and deceit…

You may remember from one of my previous posts that I had a happy little accident with my stripes. I had wanted the stripes to each be three rows tall, yet had somehow managed to screw up counting to three. The result was one stripe of three rows and one stripe of four rows. Brilliant. Rather than ripping things out, I decided to live with it.

One day, I sat down and started knitting. After a few stitches, I realized that the stitches were tighter than I remembered. After a moment of puzzlement, I realized that both my stripes now had three rows each. I looked quickly over at Lady, who was trying her best to ignore me, but the jig was up. I called her out, and she admitted to the deed, somewhat sheepishly. She had gone and ripped out like 6 rows of green, then the offending extra row of white, and re-knitted the green. Sneaky.

If I had committed such an offense on her knitting, I’m sure I’d probably be down a few body parts by now (and some of the really good parts). I was a little disappointed that she did it, since now I can’t say that I knit the entire hat, but I got over it pretty quickly, because it does look a lot better. And I’m kind of proud of myself for detecting the difference in the tension of the stitches. I’m a learnin’!

I was aiming to have two three-row stripes separated by five rows. What I ended up with was a three-row stripe, five rows of green, and then a FOUR-row stripe. I lost count doing the second stripe, and stopped at the end of what turned out to be my third row to assess the situation. I attempted to count my rows, and apparently I’m such a moron that I didn’t realize I had done three rows, because I decided that I needed one more row. Crap.

I showed Lady, who failed to conceal a smirk, and she informed me that I would have to tink back to the end of the third row. That’s ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY stitches. No effing way was I going to do that! I’ve decided instead to keep my head in constant motion whilst wearing the hat, so no one can see the mistake. It will also probably provide a decent head rush after a bit.

A staggering realization

I sat down to knit the other night and turned on the TV. Since network TV is all re-runs now, there was nothing on the DVR, so I resorted to channel surfing. Nothing piqued my interest, and ended up turning to some movie channel playing Pretty Woman. I sat and knit for about ten minutes, when a thought bubbled up into my consciousness and slapped me across the face. I realized that I was sitting there watching Pretty Woman and knitting. HOLY CRAP – I’M ONE LEG-WAX AWAY FROM BEING A FULL-ON CHICK.

Did I put the knitting down? Nah. But I did immediately change the channel and spent the rest of the evening watching The Deadliest Catch.

I’ve been having a few happy little accidents of my own this weekend. After I “accidentally” discovered combination knitting, I stuck to it, since it seems much more natural and efficient. I completed the ribbing for my hat. Unfortunately, I put down my knitting halfway through my first all-knit row, and when I picked it back up, I brain went on auto-pilot and I ribbed about 40 stitches before I realized what I had done. Crap!

Lucky for me, I have a helper in these situations. If I were learning how to knit by myself, I would probably try to fix the problem, flub the fix, and end up ripping the whole thing out and starting over. Or, more likely, ripping the whole thing out and throwing the needles and yarn in the trash. But I don’t have to resort to that, because I have Lady. Lady can sort out all my various and sundry knitting problems.

Lady took my needles in hand, looked at my happy little accident, and explained that what I needed to do was to undo my stitches or “tink” them. Tink is knit spelled backwards. Sometimes you knitters are too clever.

She showed me how to tink and handed the needles back to me. I tinked one stitch, then promptly forgot how to tink the next one. Lady came back, took the needles, sighed deeply, and tinked out the rest of my stitches.

Another happy accident that I’ve had two or three times now is something that looks like two stitches fused together. Lady tells me that she has no idea how I managed to do it, but she knows how to fix it, so it’s all good.

I also had several happy accidents that turned out not to be accidents at all. Like when four stitches fell off my right needle, and after I scooped them up (carefully, veeeery carefully) it looked like one was still dropped, right there in the middle. Nope, according to Lady, they were all there.

Someday I will be able to diagnose and remedy my happy accidents, but for now I’m grateful that I have someone to help me out of my jams. It makes the bewildering new world of knitting just a bit less perilous.