Knitaholic

28 February 2006

Toddler hat

Look! I made a hat! I started it early yesterday evening and finished it before I had my (late) lunch today. This knitting malarkey is definitely my latest addiction (I’m so bloomin’ binary). The dark circles under my eyes are testament to the addiction, as I stayed up late last night knitting … just a couple of rows … I’ll just get to the change in colour … I’ll just get into this section … I’ll just go to halfway … I’ll just knit a bit more.

Mum and Dad were awake when I finally went upstairs and so I took my work in to show them. I don’t know if Mum was prouder of the fact that I was now following a pattern, or of the fact that I’d made a small change to it. I’ve also added two stitch styles to my repertoire now: moss and stocking. Moss – knit 1, purl 1 – is a little tiresome, although a nice outcome and stocking – knit 1 row, purl 1 row – is nice to do as there’s enough purling to get into the rhythm of it. Plus, it ends up looking like proper grownup knitting.

The original pattern that Debbie gave me was for a hat with five different colours, but I just went for lilac and a blue-multi in alternating stripes. The eagle-eyed among you may notice that the lilac is the same as I was using for my Noah scarf. That’s cos I got fed up with how slowly that scarf was going and undid all my work. The needles were too small for my liking, so the scarf wasn’t very soft for a start. I’ve got the green-that-won’t-photograph-right which I shall use for a slightly fancy scarf at some point (ie, not just plain knit).

Caterpillar

I did a lot of plain knitting on my Caterpillar scarf yesterday, so it measures about 10″ long now. It doesn’t need much in the way of concentration as it’s only knitting, nothing fancy, but I do have to watch and make sure not to split the yarn as I push the needle through.

However, before I do any more the Caterpillar, or indeed start another scarf or hat, I must finish my blanket. Stretching the french knitting around the bannister rail added a good half metre to its length, but it’s still not enough to border the blanket 3 times. So I shall go round twice, then cut and bind it. Oh, and before you say anything, stretching the french knitting further and sewing it down as I go doesn’t work, it just relaxes again and makes the blanket curl up at the edges. I’d wondered if it would, but it still took me 2 metres of sewing to be sure … and then 2 metres of unpicking.