First Steps

My first completed project came many years after i began learning how to knit. In the initial days my focus was on picking up how to knit, purl, do yarn-overs, binding off etc. Once i got the basics down i began a highly ambitious project. I was going to knit my sister a bubblegum pink sweater with 21 in baby blue on the front for her 21st birthday. My sister is now 26 and she has not gotten her sweater yet. My ambition carried me quite far actually…all the way through the front, back, and one sleeve and that was the end of the pink sweater. It now exists as frogged balls of yarn in my wool pile.

I wish i could say the pink sweater was my only non-complete but that would be a big, bold-faced lie which even my thick skin can’t accommodate. I had several hits and misses over the years and being in school, working part-time, volunteering, having a social life and being young didn’t bode well for my knitting. Now i have settled into a calmer and more structured existence and found my calling once again, so to speak.

I’m a big fan of the baby steps theory and though i do occasionally like to dive in head first on some things i decided to apply the theory to my knitting. I needed small, quick knit projects which allowed me to be creative (i ‘designed’ and constructed the pattern for each pouch) and actually finish a project so that i could build on that confidence and move on to bigger knits.

This was one of the first pouches i ever completed (the pink sweater yarn makes an appearance here):

This pouch was knit as a simple rectangle and the bottom and one side seam were sewn to form the base. I folded over a seam on the top end to allow the drawstring to move freely and surprisingly this pouch can be cinched quite tightly. The drawstring was knit with pink and blue yarn together. I cast on one row and bound it off in the next to get the drawstring. Several variations of this pouch followed and i began to realise i’m not fond of seaming. I experimented with several techniques before i hit the jackpot with the next pouch.

This pouch was made to house my handphone and allow me freedom of movement. Other than the loop for my finger it is completely seamless. I first cast on stitches for the opening and knit in a garter stitch so that the ‘mouth’ of the pouch remains tight (so my phone won’t slip out) but would be elastic enough for me to be able to slide it in easily. Once i had my desired circumference i knit the cast on row and end row together before binding off. I then cast on stitches from one side of the circumference and knit one front to the desired length and arbitrary pattern before binding it off. I repeated the process with the back end. At this point i had the opening and front and back sides done but was left with gaping sides and no bottom.

Starting at one end i cast on a stitch on the opening and used a semi-crochet technique by pulling the wool through the side of one front thereby connecting both. Sounds really confusing i know but it works. I increased to the desired width of my phone and continued down the sides and bottom and attached one stitch at each end to the corresponding front/back piece.

This diamond in the rough was further refined with my next pouch:

With this pouch i knit the front to the width and height i wanted, bound off the edge and used the tail end to cast on for the sides. At each juncture i bound off and re-cast to get a ‘crisper’ edge and have the pouch maintain its shape. For the back i knit it the same as the front but ran out of the red wool hence the last minute add-on blue. I wanted a different look and feel for this one so i extended a flap and left a button-hole size for the button closure. For those wondering baout the yellow add-on…well i ran out of the blue too since i was knitting with scraps.

I also did a nice travel ouch with a long strap but that bag fell victim to a luggage thief who picked up my bag instead of his and returned it sans most of its contents.

Moral of this story: The baby steps accomplished with these pouches gave me the confidence to progress on to a top for myself and a shrug for my sister. Will take pictures of that and post about it soon.

On the scarf front i have finally decided on a pattern for my girl cousin and its a skinny scarf so its moving at a fast clip. My boy cousins scarf though has bored me to tears now and is sitting about 75% done while i finish his sister’s scarf first.

Great Ambitions

I started this blog thinking it would be filled up with my knitting history in no time. Then came the first obstacle – we shall call it Vanity. Vanity kicked up a fuss at my thoughts to post the first few things I managed to complete (handphone holders, little drawstring pouches I knit for all my female family members etc). Vanity wanted me to appear a knitting maestro (which I am not) since the few blogs I silently peruse have such beautiful finished objects on display.

After the hesitation upon reflecting about vanity’s concerns I hit the next stumbling block – Disappointment. I had set out to knit a diamond patterned top (with all my own modifications such as making it shorter than it was in the pattern and sizing it to be a snug fit) from Drops Designs. I knit the body in some wool I had left over from years and a whole different continent ago but ran out when it came to the sleeves. All wool is wool right…WRONG. I purchased acrylic for the sleeves and while there is no discernable difference the inner perfectionist in me is rebelling. The pattern of the whole top looks great but the wool body makes it a little warm for my current geographical location along the Equator..sigh!

Another modification I had done was to leave the neckline wide as I wanted the top to slouch off one shoulder. But I had begun the top just as I started my new exercise and fitness regime so the end result didn’t fit as well as it should have. After all the hard work I put in though I really did want to be able to wear it to the office so I added a few rows in garter stitch along the neckline with a smaller circular needle (I knit the body and sleeves with a 6mm and tightened the neckline with a 4.5mm) decreasing a stitch every 10 stitches for 2 rows. That experiment worked but I altered the design so it doesn’t slouch off my shoulder now. The body remains a little too large and since its knit in wool it appears a little bulky which doesn’t help with my rather curvy frame. The bottom of the top curls up since I was in too much of a hurry and too lazy to add some ribbing to the bottom. After all that hard work I am now faced with the prospect of having to frog the top and re-knit it smaller. I’ve put it aside for now since I can’t even begin to prepare myself for that.

The final obstacle came in the form of Boredom. To keep my mind off my disappointment I thought I would tackle smaller, and not to mention easier, projects. My aunt is taking my 2 younger cousins to Seoul this December so I offered to knit them scarves and hats. My aunt is as cheap as I am and she too picked up the acrylic in some rather beautiful colours. Having had experience with it when I knit the sleeves for my top I decided to knit it with much smaller needles to get a much tighter tension between stitches to keep out the cold so I went with a 3.25mm circular. I got a great tip for knitting with circular needles from one of my favourite blogs: Opportunity Knits. The Author has 2 children and has mentioned that she knits with circular needles so they won’t poke the kids who are always around her.

The circular needles allowed me to knit on the bus each morning on my way to work but a scarf knit with 3.25mm takes a loooooooooong time to even reach completion. I reached about mid-point when I succumbed to all my obstacles and took a knitting break. I’ve been off my needles for the past 2 weeks but will resume today. December is looming. I will take some pictures of the disappointment before i frog it and re-post it with the new notes on my modifications. I’m hoping the scarves will be done soon and I will have something to show. I’ve experimented with a checker box design for my boy cousin and am still undecided on what to do for my girl cousin who is 6 and extremely girly.

Until my next update….