Besides learnng how to sew, I have also decided that I should learn to knit. So I went to the library and checked out every knitting book there and bought myself some yarn and needles.
Mason Dixon Knitting was, by far my favorite book… but it provided me with no real knitting instruction. It just made me want to learn to knit even more. The other books had a lot of projects and patterns, but no instruction. Here I was with a ball of unknitted yarn and a couple of knitting needles, just staring at it and wshing Rumpelstiltskin would arrive and offer to teach me to knit in exchange for allowing him to babysit. My wish did not come true and staring down that ball of yarn was not making it knit itself up any faster either.
So I went online. I figured out the the first step was casting on. Then I looked up casting on videos. There were about 30 million videos on casting on. And all of them were a little different.
Oh boy. Why do they make knitting look so easy on cartoons? Remember Tweetie Bird’s Granny? It is not nearly that simple!
I tried each and every cast on method. Seriously. I cast on and tore off, and cast on and tore off. I may actually win a medal in tying a slip knot soon! And I found my favorite way. I did it enough times that I can do it quickly and my cast on stitches are not too tight this way. It is called the long tailed cast on. This was the most helpful video.
So after I got cast on, then it came time to try the knit stitch. THIS was a lot harder than casting on. I found two ways to do the knt stitch. One way was called the continental method and the other was called the Englsh method. Continental was cool because the yarn was in my left hand, which made workng easier. But pulling that stupd stitch “through the window” was next to impossible for me. So I tried the English method. This was easer to pull through, but it moved slooooooowwwwllllyyy… and I had to hold the yarn in my right hand, which felt uncomfortable.
I went back to the continental method, but added the throw over from the English method. I still move slow, but it is getting more and more comfortable and I am starting to get the feel for it so that I do not HAVE to throw and I can hold the needles at the right angle to pull the stitch through.
A slight improvement.
What I need? A sweet old grandmother to teach me. The Internet is good for many things. I bet that it is not the most efficient way to learn to knit though.
I chose white yarn, which is proving to be difficult to photograph… but I will upload pictures as soon as I can get a decent picture.
After hours and hours of casting on and ripping out, and knitting and ripping out, I now have about two inches of garter stitched white yarn… which will become SOMETHING soon.
Well, maybe not SOON.
Made by Madame Ladybug 