Knit and Purl

I can KNIT!!! Okay, so I've JUST learned and certainly need lots of practice (esp. with finding the most comfortable way to hold the needles), and I won't be starting any cable or fair isle sweaters any time soon, but come on! I CAN KNIT! And I UNDERSTAND it. Even how to do cable. I haven't TRIED, yet, but I totally get how it's done. It MAKES SENSE. I just can't explain how wonderful it is to have finally figured out something that at one time seemed so foreign and HARD.

And I taught myself. :) But I really didn't have any choice. No one I know (nearby...miss you, Anya) knows how to knit. And though I did know crochet, the two are certainly very different. But I used the Complete Idiot's Guide to Knitting and Crocheting... (Yeah, I know...real self-esteem booster, that title!), and I must say that the instructions were pretty straightforward and easy to follow...except purling. I just couldn't grasp that with the way they were explaining it. I knew I was doing something wrong, so I had to go to good ole' youtube to figure that out and SEE someone do it. Turns out I was holding the yarn (as in, the part coming straight from the ball) on the wrong side, so my yarn overs were going the wrong way. Easy fix. :) But you can't ask a book questions or press play to see someone do it. So, a good mix, the book and the video.

Anyway, here's what my first attempt looks like.



Yep. I know it's not perfect, but I KNOW what I did wrong. :) First off, I dropped a stitch in the first or second row. Still trying to figure out how to hold the needles and all... And then you will see some "mess ups" further up, which I know what I did but have hard time explaining. Basically, I set down the whole thing last night to go to bed, picked it up this morning and had a brain lapse of "how the heck do I do this again???" Anyway, I think I've got it now.

So, my first project will actually be a felted rolled pencil case. The stitches are straight-forward and simple. (No increasing or decreasing, yet...unless you count the leaf...) And as it's FELTED afterwards, I figured it would help hide a lot of mistakes caused by yarn tension and the like. Though hopefully there will not be a lot of mistakes. :) We'll see.