Here, my friends, is what I spent most of my Saturday evening doing. Not partying. Not doing chores. Not writing the thank you or Christmas cards.
Swatching.
Turns out the way I taught myself to knit wasn't quite "right". No, it's not a matter of Continental vs. English. It was literally a matter of my knitting through the back of the loop, therefore producing twisted stitches. You can see those on the top of the swatch, where I attempted some 1x1 ribbing. The correctly-done stitches are on the bottom. Ironically, garter stitch looks pretty much the same to me done either way, which is probably one of the reasons I never really noticed my stuff looked different before.
At first I was upset and disappointed with myself, but whatever! It's a learning experience, I know how to do the knit stitch for real now, and I'm miles ahead of others who have no clue how to knit in the back of the loop. Nyah-nyah.
All of this swatching was done, really, so I could start a new project. (Hey. My husband's hat is done, his scarf is getting there, and that prayer shawl ain't going nowhere.)
Why yes, I did fall prey to the Yarn Harlot's post about Noro Striped Scarves. I had a generous gift of two skeins of Noro Kureyon from a Ravelry pal, and I work at a yarn store with an employee discount. No contest.
It's very smart yarn. It started out green and magenta, and when the magenta turned to purple, and the green to blue to purple, the other purple moved to pink. I didn't tell it to. I literally left a tail and casted on. It's smarter than me. You may notice some curling/tightness in the bottom right corner; I've been playing with how best to carry the yarn and didn't keep my tension well. I figure I can block it out, because I don't want to rip it back. Gotta love knitting denial.
2 comments:
Happy to see that you're "untwisted" about your stitches!!!! In a few months, you'll have to look up a video to remember how to do it!
I know how you feel. I found out about ten years later that I'd been purling backwards, wrapping the yarn in the opposite direction, resulting in twisted stitches. I never really noticed it. And when I found out I decided to keep doing it my own way because I liked it fine.
Then about a year ago I taught a couple of friends to knit and I decided to try to re-teach myself to purl. To my surprise my speed picked up dramatically and that got me to change for good. So now I purl "correctly".
Do what you like and what makes you happy. ;P
Kokoriffic
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