Excitement!
I’m so excited, for several reasons.
First of all, I finished my Endpaper Mitts today, and I love them! Furthermore, I have pictures to share!
Overall, I’m very pleased with my first attempt at colorwork, and I can’t wait to do more! After I work through all the single-color projects sitting in my queue…Q…oh wait, I just remembered, Q is in my queue! Well well, that just changes everything, doesn’t it? ^_~
The second reason I’m excited is that within 5 minutes of sharing my completed Endpaper Mitts with the We See Eunny Knit group on Ravelry, I got two comments and one favorite!
The third reason I’m excited is that when I signed into Ravelry, I had a message in my inbox asking for permission to use a picture of my completed Aran Pillows on the Ravelry page for that pattern! Sweet! Granted, only one other person has a project listed for that pattern, and I don’t believe they have any pictures posted, but still! Exciting! (The pattern I used is this one from CanadianLiving.com, by the way.)
And finally, I’m excited to go to the knitting group again tomorrow night!
Wow, just look at all those exclamation points. That’s a lot of knitting excitement in one day. ^_^
No pictures yet, unfortunately
Due to Daylight Saving Time ending this past weekend, it is now dark when I get home from work, which throws a wrench in my plans to take pictures.
You see, I received a nice little digital camera for Christmas last year, and I have yet to figure out how to expertly use the settings to provide the optimal focus and color in various lighting situations. Right now, the only time I seem to consistently get quality pictures is when I take them in natural sunlight. Now you see my problem.
I finished the first Endpaper Mitt last night, after struggling not once, not twice, but three times with starting the tubular bind-off. On the first attempt, my yarn got caught on one of the needles without me noticing, until several stitches later when I realized I had a big loop sticking out. The second time around, I just plain didn’t like how loose the bound-off stitches looked. The third time was the charm, and my bind-off actually looks fairly decent.
I even took the time to weave in all the ends BEFORE starting my second mitt! That’s more than I can say for my poor Hedera socks, which are still patiently waiting to get their ends woven in. (Note: This has not prevented me from wearing them about half a dozen times.)
So, the second mitt is cast-on and joined, and the first few rows of ribbing are started. I hope to get it done by this weekend so I can show them off next Monday, and actually be knitting something else at the meeting. If I do get it done, I will also decree it to be Finishing UFOs Weekend. I will finally weave in the ends of those socks, and finish the zipper and hood on Roam. MARK MY WORDS.
First official knitting blog post, or Why I Knit Inside-Out
Welcome to the first post of my official knitting blog! I’ve had a regular old blog over at Livejournal for about 3.5 years, but lately I’ve been talking about knitting so much that I think it’s time to spare the sensibilities of my LJ friends and break off the knitting talk into a completely separate blog.
SO, let the games begin!
Saturday night I broke new ground in my ongoing quest to Be The Best Knitter I Can Be: I performed my first tubular cast-on. The Italian Tubular Cast-on, to be exact. It was a little scary, especially when it came time to pull the yarn out from inside the tube, but it was worth it!
The purpose of all that? To make Eunny Jang’s Endpaper Mitts. I’ve been wanting to knit these puppies almost as long as I’ve been aware of Eunny’s blog (so, about eight months), and the sudden drop in temperature around here inspired me to temporarily drop the Sesame I was working on, so I could make something to keep my hands warm for my winter knitting projects. I’m almost done with the first mitt, and I’m very pleased at how well my first foray into colorwork is going. (Pictures forthcoming.)
Last night I went to my first knitting meet ever. I met up at Perk ‘n’ Pub with some ladies I met in the Wisconsin group on Ravelry. It was so nice to not only hang out with knitters, but to hang out with knitters who are aware of things like Ravelry, Knitty, etc. I mean, sure, my grandma knows how to knit, but there’s a bit of a disconnect between generations of knitters pre and post-internet.
A couple of the ladies were surprised to see me knitting my Endpaper Mitts inside out on the DPNs. Yeah, about that. I’ve only done about two projects on DPNs, and I’m aware that I knit inside-out. It never occurred to me that I’m in the minority on that; for some reason I feel like the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch book (from which I primarily taught myself to knit) specifically told me to hold the working needles away from me, but maybe I’ve got it mixed up. Either way, I don’t consider it a problem, as long as I’m aware that the right side of my work is on the inside as I knit. In fact, when starting the Endpaper Mitts, I toyed with the idea of knitting right-side-out for once, but didn’t for two reasons:
1. I’m used to the inside-out method.
2. Knitting inside-out prevents my floats from cutting straight across at the corners between needles, and keeps the floats at a looser tension in general, which I like.
So…that’s that!
Stitchuesque 
