Entry tags:
So, anyway...
I'm still on holiday in France and, as you do when you go on holiday, I have decided to take up knitting. (I was going to watch the rest of season one of Torchwood but my laptop's getting a bit too hot to deal with it.)
SO... yes, knitting. It transpires that, even though I've done it before, I'm pretty darned awful at it. Advice required.
I am giving the knitting until the end of this holiday and if it doesn't improve I will take the needles and fold them in half very, very happily, so that they fit in the bin.
SO... yes, knitting. It transpires that, even though I've done it before, I'm pretty darned awful at it. Advice required.
- I keep randomly gaining and losing stitches. I don't drop them or anything, I don't create huge gaping holes in the knitting, I'll just suddenly find myself with one stitch less or two more than I had before. I don't really understand why, especially the losing business. I know why I gain them, I think it's because I stick the needle in too low when I knit and end up with two kind of weird loops which I assume on the way back are both stitches. But I don't get why I'm losing them.
- The sides are AWFUL. I've been told and read that I'm supposed to stick the needle in from right to left and transfer the first stitch without actually knitting it. I've been doing this and I'm just ending up with about a 4-stitch wide tangled mess on either side of my knitting. And it's not like I do things really haphazardly, I'm really anal and tidy when it comes to any sort of yarn-related hobby.
- Speaking of which, the whole thing really is just more or less a mess. Does this get better with time? I think part of the problem is that I don't quite understand which part of the knitting I'm supposed to be keeping tight in order to achieve a uniform effect. Also, the neater I try to do it, the tighter everything becomes and eventually I can't even get my needle in anymore.
- Why can I purl but not knit?
- Can anyone recommend what wool I should be using taking into consideration the fact that I am obviously special needs and cannot cope with wool unravelling into separate strands. I end up knitting 4 of the 6 strands, creating a little loop out of the other two and then eventually pulling out the finished result in frustration and starting over.
I am giving the knitting until the end of this holiday and if it doesn't improve I will take the needles and fold them in half very, very happily, so that they fit in the bin.
no subject
Slipping the first stitch of a row is but one of the available methods of avoiding saggery, and I hates it like poison because it is poo and makes sewing up an arse if you are making anything but a scarf. What I do is knit as normal then, when I have put the right-hand needle into the second stitch but not yet knitted it, pull the first one a bit tighter. Works for me. And isn't wanky. The other thing people do is to knit every first stitch even on purl rows, which can be good but not so much for scarfs.
You have noticed that tension translates into tension in mocking overly-literal fashion, I see. Neatness seems to be a thing that comes with time rather than anything else. I knitted an extra-tiny beret recently out of stress-induced extra-tight tension, and I did not ought to be doing that still.
With some wool knitting two together is easier than you'd think. That may be happening.
Purl-not-knit is no madder than knit-not-purl, really, it's just unusual. It means you are more exciting than most of us and also that you are the anti-Elizabeth Zimmerman. All fun.
My feeble thoughts are that you could just get some underwhelming wool you don't care about and knit and unknit it in relaxing circles until it goes a bit grey. Not that exciting but useful for the practice bit. It is what nos does while waiting for Second Life to load on her antique computer.
As for looping, it's probably easiest to tell just by poking various wools in a shop and seeing what seems to stay wound. Which is another way of saying I haven't a clue.
So yes. Knitting is a bugger sometimes.
no subject
no subject
Knitting is bad masochism. Stick to the good sort. Knitting works well for calming a spiky brain or helping to quit smoking, but the boiling hate might counteract these virtues.
no subject
no subject
Oh. Also. You probably know this, but do not ever try to learn to knit/crochet/etc with dark-coloured wool. You will go blind and mad. And there are funner ways to do that.