Infected...
I've been infected by the knitting bug.
While my parents were in town, I picked up knitting with some help from my mother. (Hi, Mom!) Armed with her advice, and the two books Stitch 'N Bitch and Mason Dixon Knitting, I promptly turned into a dishcloth-producing machine. Dishclothes are fabulous first projects -- they're small enough that I can see an end in sight, they're done on extremely cheap yarn, they hide mistakes well because they shrink in the wash, and they're immediately useful. I love creating things that are both beautiful and useful.
That said, I had to take picture of most of my first creations, being all proud of them.
My very first finished object, a Grandmother's Favorite dishcloth. They are quite easy to make, and produce quick satisfaction for a beginner. I have two almost identical ones that look like this:
Two ballband dishcloths, once the bane of my existance. I had so much trouble with the first one (the lime green one) that I eventually just declared it done partway through, because the yarn was starting to look weak from all the ripping out and reknitting.
I started putting lifelines through the purple and blue one so that I could rip out rows and have a stopping point. Doing this, though, made it impossible to knit in public, as lifelines are typically used for very intricate projects, such as lace. I'd be mortified for a real knitter to notice me putting them in on a dishcloth. I think, though, I've got the hang of it now, and I'm inordinately proud of the one I finished. Being proud, I took multiple pictures of it to compare it with the first one:
Yes, those two objects were supposedly made from the same pattern. Perhaps you can understand why I just gave up on the green one.
I also finished a dishcloth from a Yahoo group that has a monthly knit-a-long where the result is a surprise until you finish it. Every day they send out 10 rows of the dishcloth, and assuming you knit it without errors, you get to see what the pattern is in the end. The stitching on the bottom gave me a bit of difficulty, but I managed to get through it with a minimum of errors:
If you can't tell, it's a dolphin diving into water. I probably wouldn't have picked the pattern on my own, but it was fun to do.
I also did a soap bag that I didn't get a picture of before I gave it away to my mother. As I said, I've definitely been bitten by the bug. I'm already partway through yet another dishcloth, this one done in a new stitch I just learned and love (the seed stitch), and I've promised Jeff a soap bag in red similar to the one I gave my mother.
Knitting, however, has started to take up all the time when I used to run. This is probably not a healthy development.
While my parents were in town, I picked up knitting with some help from my mother. (Hi, Mom!) Armed with her advice, and the two books Stitch 'N Bitch and Mason Dixon Knitting, I promptly turned into a dishcloth-producing machine. Dishclothes are fabulous first projects -- they're small enough that I can see an end in sight, they're done on extremely cheap yarn, they hide mistakes well because they shrink in the wash, and they're immediately useful. I love creating things that are both beautiful and useful.
That said, I had to take picture of most of my first creations, being all proud of them.
My very first finished object, a Grandmother's Favorite dishcloth. They are quite easy to make, and produce quick satisfaction for a beginner. I have two almost identical ones that look like this:
Two ballband dishcloths, once the bane of my existance. I had so much trouble with the first one (the lime green one) that I eventually just declared it done partway through, because the yarn was starting to look weak from all the ripping out and reknitting.
I started putting lifelines through the purple and blue one so that I could rip out rows and have a stopping point. Doing this, though, made it impossible to knit in public, as lifelines are typically used for very intricate projects, such as lace. I'd be mortified for a real knitter to notice me putting them in on a dishcloth. I think, though, I've got the hang of it now, and I'm inordinately proud of the one I finished. Being proud, I took multiple pictures of it to compare it with the first one:
Yes, those two objects were supposedly made from the same pattern. Perhaps you can understand why I just gave up on the green one.
I also finished a dishcloth from a Yahoo group that has a monthly knit-a-long where the result is a surprise until you finish it. Every day they send out 10 rows of the dishcloth, and assuming you knit it without errors, you get to see what the pattern is in the end. The stitching on the bottom gave me a bit of difficulty, but I managed to get through it with a minimum of errors:
If you can't tell, it's a dolphin diving into water. I probably wouldn't have picked the pattern on my own, but it was fun to do.
I also did a soap bag that I didn't get a picture of before I gave it away to my mother. As I said, I've definitely been bitten by the bug. I'm already partway through yet another dishcloth, this one done in a new stitch I just learned and love (the seed stitch), and I've promised Jeff a soap bag in red similar to the one I gave my mother.
Knitting, however, has started to take up all the time when I used to run. This is probably not a healthy development.