A Realization, A Dictionary, and An Explanation

Dear Friends,

I am willing to admit that I am shamefully out of the loop on a lot of things. I don't watch the news and I hardly ever listen to the radio. When it comes to the world of knitting I feel as if I am even further behind. I only got serious about this hobby about 6 months ago and since then I've been trying to play catch up on a lot of things that people have known about for years. This morning before school I was reading some Yarn Harlot (I call this research. I do teach a knitting class...) and I noticed that she mentions WEBS. I am woefully ignorant of WEBS so I clicked on the link. What happened next was mind blowing... It was like walking into a yarn mall so chock full of good things it was breathtaking... and then I saw the "sale" sign.

My pastor once spoke of people who only buy things because they are on sale. I am one of these people. I cannot resist a red (or blue, or yellow, or any color for that matter) tag proclaiming "I was once more expensive than this." The last time I paid full price for pants was when I was in college. But, dear friends, this was more than a sale. This was a good sale. Good yarns on sale for reasonable prices. Do not click on the WEBS link and buy things that are on sale unless you are buying them for me. Otherwise we could have a problem. My credit card would already be out if not for the fact that I have to browse all the yarns and pick out ones that look soft and have cool names before I will buy them (another caveat of mine).

Ok, :::breathe:::, moving on....This morning I had to leave my office for a bit and walk around to keep from feeling light headed at such a monumental occurrence.

The real reason I am writing this blog is because I have been told that some of my knitting terms need explanation for the non-knitters (aka muggles) out there reading this. Thus I give you...

Melissa's Dictionary of Knitting Terms
Knit: to make things out of magical sticks much like Harry Potter (except without as many near death experiences...I hope), also a type of stitch which is basically loops that go through each other
Purl: a reverse knit stitch, instead of loops going through the bottom they go through the top, just think of it as another loop
Stockinette stitch: looks like this (little v shapes)
Garter stitch: looks like this (little sideways c shapes)
Anything other than Stockinette or garter stitch: very complicated loopy patterns
Needles: the magic sticks used to turn this into this
DPNs: double pointed needles, two sharp pointed ends for maximum pokeage, a miniature double edged sword if you will
Casting on: putting yarn onto the magic needles
Binding off: taking yarn off the magic needles
Ripping back: removing the magic needles and pulling the yarn out of what you just knit so that it unravels some (or almost all) of the way. This is so you can try and put the yarn back on the needle and fix a stupid mistake you made like knitting when you should have purled (Why should it matter really? It's all just loops!)
Frogging: Remember the Weezer song that had the line "If you want to destroy my sweater/just pull the string as I walk away"? That's what you do to your project. On purpose. Because you are an idiot and did everything so wrong it will never be fixed unless you just start over. But you still want the yarn.

J.M. that was for you. Hope that helps. If you need any other definitions you can just ask.

And, as an explanation as to why sometimes things seem to happen slowly around here, I give you this picture:
This is how my cat sits on me. Notice she props herself on my arm. What you can't see is that she actually shifts all her weight so it is on that arm and I can barely move it. Sometimes my hand falls asleep. She is so co-dependent.

Why I'm No Longer Allowed in Any Store That Sells Yarn

After I had a massage this morning I went to Wal-Mart for the first time in months (this should tell you something about the local Wal-Mart that I have to be completely and totally relaxed before I even think about entering there). I went to pick up this:

A birthday present for my aunt. What I came out with is this:

So I might have new thing for Bernat chunky yarn.


I have explanations for most of these purchases. The navy and grey are going to be used for a secret present. The size 6 needles, I am convinced, will bring me the utmost happiness and joy when I knit these bad boys

into a fuzzy, lace type scarf. The other Bernat yarn? I have no excuse for it except to say that I loved the color, they were both from the same dye lot, they were the last 2 skeins, and they were less than $2 each. I think they will knit up into a fab scarf.

Work on the preemie-baby-sweater-that-may-never-end continues. Here it hangs out in the specially designated "blocking sink" (isn't it nice that even though I have a tiny apartment I have 2 bathroom sinks so I can devote one solely to soaking my knit projects?!?!).

I started blocking the back and one of the front panels and then I ran out of t-pins (should have picked up that second box today at Wal-Mart).
You can see how the blocking changes the front panel's size. On the left is the right panel and the on the right is the unblocked left panel.

Finally, I owe the faggot stitch scarf, which I've renamed the autumn scarf due to the pretty burnt color, an apology. A few nights ago I cursed at it. I said not nice things to it. And it was all my fault. I was reading blogs while trying to knit. I wasn't paying attention. I may have missed one of the billion K2togs that happens in this scarf. And I lost it. It had nothing, I assure you, to do with the fact that it was almost midnight (ok, it had everything to do with that). After yelling and much sighing I began the process of ripping back to a row where I could actually see where the stitches were all the while praying that I wouldn't have to frog the whole thing (since that has already happened 3 times).

I find a row where I'm able to pick up all the stitches and then feel compelled to knit all the rows I had to pull out (somewhere between 5 and 10). As I start to knit I realize that the yarn overs are twisted in the wrong direction and the other stitches probably are too. But I press on fixing as I go. I do not end up knitting all the rows that I pulled out before shear exhaustion took over. I was a little upset that I could not finish one project perfectly, but then look at this:

Can you find the wonky row? Neither can I. And I've looked closely. Thank you autumn scarf for being so forgiving and hiding all my mistakes deep within your super soft rows. Never again will I be angry with you.

Simple Scarves

As promised...here are some pictures of some projects I've completed over the past year and half. First up, three simples scarves. These were all knitted using a garter stitch (knit all rows).






Here's a close up of the blue hued scarf. I believe the yarn I used I was Red Heart Multicolor in Ocean (or something very similar). I had this left over from several other projects. I cast on 25 stitches and used US size 13 needles.






This is a close up of the skinny blue scarf. Unfortunately there was no good pictures of the color. The scarf was really shiny and the flash from the camera kept bouncing back. Anyhow...this is a cool scarf. It came in a generic "Learn to Knit" kit I got for my birthday. I would not suggest using this type of yarn to learn to knit. I gave up on it after about an hour. Lion Brand Funky Fur yarn is a type very similar to the one pictured. This scarf is very skinny, about 15 stitches, but long.






This is a close up of the red scarf. It was actually the first thing I ever completed. I'm pretty proud of this because the garter stitch came out really even for someone who had no idea what they were doing. I used Red Heart yarn but I can't remember what the color was. Something dark red and on sale no doubt. I used US size 9 needles and about 20 stitches.


Feel free to mimic any of these designs (they're really tough, I know...). Enjoy!