Current Projects

I'm still working on the the scallop scarf. Last night, it was a bit chilly in the house so I was wearing the scarf and knitting on it at the same time. I was terribly amused. :)

The scallop scarf is 65+ inches long. The pattern said to go to 59 inches, but I was so close to the end of the skein, and longer scarfs are better, I just kept going. Now, to figure out how to "bind off"....

I'm expecting two knitting books and a crochet book in the mail. Ordered them from amazon.com. One is "Stitch and Bitch", one is called something like "When bad things happen to good knitters: an emergency guide", and the other is a crochet book.

I'm planning to start the purple, boucle scarf soon. I started it a couple times last night, but kept making mistakes. With that yarn, it's impossible for me to identify the stitches. So, I think the pattern was too complicated for that type of yarn (since you wouldn't see any of the fancy/interesting stitches).

Instead, I may just do a garter stitch scarf with the boucle. I'm going to try a k2p2, p2k2 before I resort to garter stitch though.

Yesterday, I bought yarn for bathmats and dishcloths. Gonna make a bathmat as a gift (red and denim). And another for us (red and natural). Brian seemed like he wanted to keep some of the dishcloths I made as a gift, so I figured I'd make some dishcloths for us, too.

"Knit Nut"

I went on a quest for local yarn shops. My quest led me to a woman's house. She had owned a yarn shop in Long Beach and when she retired, she moved all her yarn into her house and garage (and a storage unit somewhere).

She has TONS of yarn and she'll sell most of it for 25 cents an ounce. I got two skeins of wool sock yarn, three skeins of Egyptian cotton yarn, two skeins of "Gelato cotone" yarn, and two cones of yarn for $24.

If you want to go see her, she's in Huntington Beach. Just call her first so she can put your name in with the guard at the gate. Here is the information: Knit Nut.

My First Frog!

While working on my scarf, I suddenly realized that I had skipped a row and the result was that the front design was appearing on the back of the scarf!!

So, I looked up how to frog on the interweb, and nervously set to work.

Long story short: it worked. I used some fingering yarn and a tapesty needle to keep from losing the stitches. (I found the suggestion on the Internet.)

The scarf us about nine inches long. Fifty inches to go!! Whoo!!

Mindi's Knitting Patterns

Last night I saw Mindi (an avid knitter) at a party. She gave me some knitting patterns to try to help me learn the knitting craft. I had emailed her describing how much I can do (knit and purl, baby) and had asked her to recommend some patterns or a book to get me going onto harder stuff. She gave me a pattern for a scarf that will teach me to knit multiple stitches together, a hat that will teach me to do "short rows", and a dishcloth.

I will need to call my mom and have her help me cast-on over the phone. She does it in this odd way that want to preserve. I say "odd" because I have yet to see her method on any of the tutorials I've found online.

She does some very simple thing to get loops on the needle while leaving a long tail. Then she uses the tail to knit into the loops on the needle. And that's her cast-on.

If it turns out I can't get that to work for me, I'll probably go with the "Italian Cast-On". I saw a tutorial on it and gave it a try. I almost managed it, but it will take a bit more practice.