Of Snow and Pink Sweaters

Yesterday it snowed again. An odd occurrence here in Georgia.
Penelope found the warmest, most comfortable spot in the house and stayed there all day.

The Boyfriend and I braved the "fray" to go get some lunch. Hey, nice hat! :)
Lots of snow...
My neighbors and their kids had fun in the wintry weather. They really put a lot of thought into these snow people.
It was a good night for staying in since the temperature dropped to the teens. I watched Brit-coms on Public Television...
and worked on the pink sweater. This is where it gets kind of technical so if you just want to scroll down and look at the pictures feel free.

When I started knitting I taught myself everything. I think I did pretty dang good for someone who never asked another person what they were doing (What can I say? I'm stubborn and like to figure stuff out for myself.). Well, I taught myself to purl, for lack of a better word, wrong. On things where there is little stitch definition this doesn't really matter. However, with a large piece like a sweater with good stitch definition, it makes a difference. You can see in the following picture that the top half is done with purls executed correctly and the bottom with an "interpretation" of the purl stitch.

What I did was basically half a purl. This is how a purl should look:
Yarn wrapped all the way around from right to left between the needles. This is what I was doing:
Wrapping the yarn from front to back. That resulted in every other row (or every purled row) being "twisted" or half done. I debated with myself on what to do. Do I continue to purl incorrectly on the back of the sweater and fix it on the front? Do I fix it now on the back and make a visible change? Do I do the whole sweater with a wrong purl?

I believe that what we practice becomes habit (as I demonstrated). I don't like doing things incorrectly. I also don't want to rip back an entire sweater back that I started over a year ago. And this is a charity piece. I probably am going to send it overseas to a gypsy in Romania. And if you are gypsy in Romania sleeping on a park bench every night are you going to scrutinize the back of a sweater? Exactly. This is just practice. At this moment I'm very happy there are no "Knitting Police." I will never take this to a serious whack of knitters and show it off proudly (at least not the back). But if I did I would like to think they'd laugh it off as a beginners mistake. Here's the sweater back thus far:

A line...oops. Boy my hands are dry and gross looking...sorry. I still feel really good about the sweater. Good that I even started it when I knew little more than how to knit and how to purl (albeit incorrectly at first). Good that I have stuck with it. Good that I'm almost finished with it. Good that I know better now and good that the front will look better. Good that I shared a secret that maybe other first time knitters have experienced.

I'll admit that telling the knitting world that I had been purling wrong was a little tough. So, to make myself feel better I took a picture of Penelope basking the early morning light. She didn't laugh about me and my purl deficiency.

P.S. The actual temperature right now is 19 degrees Fahrenheit (-7 Celsius) and the windchill is 4 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 Celsius). Brrrr!!!

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.