OT

Just as I confess the knitting is becoming an interesting obsession of late, I have this quilt to make, and my knitting is set aside. But not in the books I've been reading.

I learned to knit just the garter stitch and barely learned long-tail cast on. I never learned a proper cast off. I did manage to learn to purl and k2p2 ribbing, so I could make slippers. I made slippers for the entire family, and then ran out of things to do. So I made huge garter stitch scarves, and learned to splice in the ends. I even made an amusing angora-type scarf with one there and back each of white and black so I never had to snip the ends. The longest scarf was 27 feet long and 5 inches wide, taking 3 skeins of a very cheap acrylic. It was the very cheap acrylic that finished my knitting for a while. My mother hated acrylic because it itched, and she did not either know about alternatives or did not feel like furthering that education. She had moved onto counted cross stitch (which I hated because I was required to count- and I was annoyingly insistent on doing each color all at once, thereby making it harder on myself. Now that I know to grid my cloth I may try again!) and quilting, which I took up with enthusiasm. Learned a lot about color from quilting, but that's not what I want to type about today. Then Joanne's expanded their yarn selection beyond cheap-ass acrylic. Ooo. I started picking up yarns based on texture, and then I made huge afghans out of them. Straight garterstitch only, but the feel of the yarn kept it interesting.

And this past year, I started reading knitting blogs. They are far more interesting as a personal rule than the quilting blogs. You can produce more writing about your project when your project is more portable and you can cycle through them quicker. Anyway, I was challenged to make Socks. So I did. So what if I had never used DPNs before? That didn't bother me. The yarn shop I found tried to convince me that I could take baby steps with chunkier yarn and two circular needles, and showed me a pattern for it. But no, they weren't what I thought of as Proper socks. The heel of her top-down pattern was ugly. Aesthetically, I don't like the "toe-flap" heels. And they were too thick. I want something like a sock I would wear, and not just treat as a slipper. So I tried The Wendy's generic toe-up sock pattern. And lo, I made socks.

And now, I'm interested in learning more about knitting and in socks. This has lead me to want a prettier bind off than just running the yarn through the top of the sock. I've acquired the book "DomiKNITrix: Whip Your Knitting into Shape" and it is wonderfully clear explanations of what all that ssk k2tog stuff means, since I didn't have a clue, in addition to proper bindoffs and other cast-ons. Granted, I don't have the body to wear 90% of the patterns she has in the book, but I didn't buy it for the patterns. Hearing that I had acquired this book, a kind person also sent me "Naughty Needles." I do adore the humor, but again, I don't have the body for much of the patterns. I'm not horrifically fat, but I do need to lose about 50 to 80 pounds before I should consider bouncing around in a knit bikini. The "condom critters" looked amusing though, and I know several kids that may get one when they reach college age. And I do want to make the knited and felted capelet. It's something I could wear in the SCA. I could even imagine knitting it with my arms on it, or even a bordure of the badge.  ¶ 12:34 PM