So, anyway...

[tencrush]

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 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.

Comments

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the knitting. I really should start crocheting again.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

Knittage babble from someone who is pants enough at it to understand is BETTER than if I knew what I was talking about. Yes.

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.

[sarcasticchick.livejournal.com]

How are you knitting? ie English or Continental? (English - yarn threaded by right hand, thrown over needle, Continental - yarn threaded by left hand, stitch picked and 'scooped' by your needle)

And what are you knitting?

I taught myself English method, and began with purling. Found it incredibly hard to knit - but now knitting is my preferred stitch - I just practiced with a simple lace scarf (very forgiving with your stitch tension) and a simple baby blanket and got to the point where I was comfy knitting.

One thing I discovered when I started knitting (well, purling) was that if I wasn't careful when I'd turn my work while purling, sometimes I'd carry over the thread basically like a yarn over, adding an extra stitch. Losing stitches without the evil drop stitch - you're knitting double some where.

With the slip stitch at the beginning of your work - that'll end up in a bit 'taller' border. At least it does when I do it. Part of it might just be that you knit fairly loose. Are you hitting gauge at all for the yarn? How are you holding the yarn in the hand you're feeding with? Do you have the end secured and controlled with other fingers? You might try: 1) loop around your pinkie, then over your index finger. 2) (method I prefer) Over index, under middle, over ring, under pinkie (and I bend the pinkie to further control the yarn). That'll help shape up the finished product by having more even, controlled stitches.

Depending on what you're knitting, blocking will help the final shape too - esp if you're using wool. Another trick to help even out your stitches - when you're done, tug the entire thing width-wise, diagonally one way, diagonally the other, then height-wise. Not hard enough to break your yarn, but hard enough to make a difference in your stitches.

As far as the yarn splitting - some yarns are just notorious for that, some don't. I don't know what yarn supply access you have, but if you have an actual yarn store, one of the people might be able to help suggest something. I'm not even sure where you're living - but Cascade 220 is a good multi-purpose reasonably priced wool yarn.

Okay, sorry, that was a lot of babble.

Edited to say: Good luck with the knitting! It was a struggle for me at first - but now I don't go anywhere without a project. Wine helps, at first. ;)

[bandgeek01.livejournal.com]

I say try crocheting :) I crochet, very basically, because it's hard for me to find patterns/visuals for lefties. I find crocheting more relaxing.


Nicole

[virginhuntress.livejournal.com]

You are most likely losing your stitches at the end of your row. Or, you lose them in the middle (if you put it down and it slips off) and don't notice it. You really wouldn't get a large gap in the piece unless you dropped a few, since knitting is much tighter than crocheting.

Screw the whole "don't knit and just transfer the stitch". It NEVER works for me and I've been knitting for a few years. I just learn to knit it as normal and then remember to try not to knit that last one too tightly, b/c if it's tighter on some rows than on others, you get lopsided sides.

It will get better with time, TRUST me. I was a crap knitter (and a great crocheter)... all because I couldn't get the needles to settle in my hand comfortably. Just relax and eventually you'll find your own rhythm.

Are you sure you don't have them confused? Knitting is what happens when you place your needle from front to the back and then loop, and bring the needle back towards you and then off. Purl is when you bring the needle towards your body first, loop around and push the needle through. Same stitch, just in reverse of each other.

You know what? Gimme a minute and I'll show you. :D

[virginhuntress.livejournal.com]

As a thank you for all the laughs with the pie-alerts and for being generally fabulous, I've made you videos to show you what I was talking about.

You can find them all here, and they all 10MB or under so that dl times won't be horrendous.

Please excuse how I look, I don't film well and it's now almost 3 in the morning here.

FYI - the .exe program is a decoder for DivX, in case you need it, but all the files are .avi
Good luck, honey!

[off_coloratura]

You're doing Continental knitting, holding the yarn in your left hand. It is faster and, contrary to the commenter's assertion above, it's LOOSER than English (right-handed) knitting, which is why you're overcompensating with the pulling tight. (If you're a right-hander you may find it easier to hold the yarn in the right hand to get an even tension. There are videos of both styles here.)

Even tension is controlled by how you wind the yarn around the fingers of your hand as you hold it. There are all different ways to do it, and I experimented with a couple before discovering that wrapping it once around my two middle fingers was the easiest for me. I've also seen wraps around the pinky and index, woven between all the fingers, and slung around the back of the neck (with the yarn on your right, coming over your right shoulder, around the back of the neck, and feeding into your left hand from over your left shoulder.) Experiment and see what feels best for you.

Once you wrap the yarn, don't pull it tight. Knitting the next stitch will do that. I used to pull it tight twice: once when I wrapped the yarn, and once when I knit the next stitch. After a few rows I could barely get the needle in. I had to learn to knit a little bit more relaxed, as well, to counteract my tightening ways.

Slipping stitches at the beginning of the row -- You might try slipping as if to knit: put your needle in left to right and slip it off the needle. That'll twist the stitch and make it tighter. Alternatively you could just forget about the slipping and try knitting the stitch and pulling it extra tight.

I concur with those above that you're probably adding stitches at the beginning of a row by letting the thread come over the needle, or, if you're knitting and purling, by moving the yarn over the needles when switching from front to back, instead of between the needles. I had the added-stitches problem like mad on my first scarf. Once you've practiced a little and your knitting gets more consistent and mechanical, you'll stop doing that. Ditto with the getting the needle in the right hole and the sticking the needle through the yarn. I still do that sometimes, it's just something you have to watch for.

As for the fact that knit happens behind the needle and is hard to see: When you stick the right needle in the loop, it should open it enough to see through. Your left middle finger should be perched on that stitch, holding it in place on the needle and letting you stretch it open, and when your index finger moves the yarn into position the middle finger stops it right at the stitch opening. Then the right needle can scoop that little sucker up and through the loop.

It may also make it easier to hold the left needle so that the tip is pointing to 1 or 2 o'clock (where 12 is straight up).

Just FYI about crocheting: I hear that it is easier, but it just looks too loosey-goosey freestyle to me. I like having all my stitches lined up on a needle where I can keep track of them, rather than crochet willy-nilly into any hole that looks available. But that's me. (And my god that sounded a bit dirty.)

The nicest patterns I've seen for crochet are toys and bags. It's not very well suited to clothing, because it makes a thick and somewhat inflexible fabric (it uses three times as much yarn as knitting for a fabric the same size). I also don't like the blocky look of the stitches, but that's a personal taste thing. However, if the seventies kitsch factor appeals, go for it!

Finally, be patient. The first thing you ever knit is going to suck, guaranteed, end of story. But by the time you finish it you'll have developed the skillz to do a nice job on the next thing you tackle. Even then, I still sometimes have to start over several times when I'm knitting something new. So use it as an opportunity to examine your technique and tailor it to something that works best for you.

[queencheesecake.livejournal.com]

My sides always sucked too. For some reason, this problem goes away if you use bigger wool and needles, or it does for me anyway.

As for the random losing of stitches, you're probably accidentally knitting two stitches at once; luckily if you drop some too it tends to even it out. It's something I used to do a lot (and could also contribute to the sides looking a little messy as they'll end up uneven). That's something you'll get over.

Oh, and are you left-handed? Because I find purling a damn sight easier than knitting and I think it's because of my cack-handedness.