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February 15, 2005
Knitting with baseball bats!
Working away on the Raven Scarf.... initially, I cast on ten stitches with size 15 needles. My swatch was WAY too tight, this combo is much thicker than I anticipated. After some trial and error, I decided on 7 stitches on a size 17 needle. This should go quickly.
Mistakenly, I assumed the big needles (size 17, bamboo) would be easier to handle but they make my hands cramp. It's so awkward maneuvering those giants. Aside from the grandma arthritic cramping of my hands, ahem, the Raven scarf is turning out well. It's fuzzy and dense but the pink chenille yarn makes a faint stripe, almost like a candycane.
Close-up of the yarn:
In other scarf-news, my practice yarn scarf (PYS) is coming along just swimmingly. It's an original all right. I'm using the Patons Up Country 100% wool bulky yarn in dark grey. By the way, it's much harder to see your stitches in a dark yarn. But my unique one-of-a-kind scarf has got ribbing in the middle of some stockinette, right next to some drop-stitch madness, where I apparently increased a stitch magically. Practice makes perfect.
I can't seem to figure out the proper way to do a drop-stitch row, since my end stitches are either way too tight or way too lose, hopefully I can make it to class on Saturday to ask Linda what the hell I'm doing wrong. Does anybody know if you're supposed to knit the first stitch, then start your yarnover on the second stitch? I was yarn-overing on the first stitch and getting a mess.
(It should be very clear now why I needed a "practice yarn" and a "practice scarf." Teaching myself to knit from a book is like the ADD-addled leading the blind.)
Posted by laurie at February 15, 2005 08:57 AM
