I don't know if it's the cool crisp autumn weather or the extra hour we get today, (probably a combination of the two), but I'm just getting oodles of stuff done, and it's only half-past-noon! In addition to my mad Sunday scramble to do laundry and pack for the coming travel week, I'm straightening up (only a wee tiny bit) the house, clearing things to do off my desk and calendar, and I might even have time to get some knitting done. So I'm stealing a little time to update the blog, as well.
I'm still avoiding the scary circular needles (how appropriate that I deem them "scary" during this Halloween season), but I will take them with me this week - perhaps I'll get inspired and be able to focus whilst in my less distracting hotel room. Meanwhile, I've frogged the ribbed scarf twice, and attempted to cast on, oh, at least 15 different times. My second attempt at the scarf looked great except that the cast-on edge appeared to have holes underneath the first row's purled stitches, because I did a knitted cast-on. I would almost let it slide except that I know when I go to bind off the other end I will bind off in pattern, and then the two ends will look different enough to scream "amateur!". I've even considered attempting to do a k2p2 knitted cast on, if that's even possible. And so I've asked various folks their opinions on what type of cast-on I should do. Many people, the pattern's author included, recommend a long-tail cast-on. Two ladies who replied to my post on the Knitty Coffeeshop forum suggested a German long-tail cast-on. I taught myself the regular long-tail last night but ripped it out at least 15 times because, as you might guess, I just can't get the tail length right, (usually too long). By now that poor first few feet of yarn is probably throwing up its little yarn hands in surrender, saying, "please, for the love of all things woolly, stop knitting before you pill us beyond recognition". I may try and teach myself that German cast-on to see if that's any better. We'll see. It really shouldn't be this hard, ya know? It's a freakin' scarf! Whatevah.
Alrighty then, I will end this post, although I may continue to do some blog maintenance to add a few more "blogs I'm reading" links over there on the left and perhaps join a few more webrings to see if that might increase traffic.
Have a great daylight savings Sunday, everyone!
2 comments:
Here's a tip that may help you with the long tail cast-on. Wrap the yarn around the needle once for each stitch you need to cast on, then add about 8 inches. For example, if you need to cast-on 48 sts, wrap the yarn around the needle 48 times, hold your "spot", take the yarn off the needles then add another 8 inches of yarn. That's where you begin casting on. By wrapping the yarn around the needles, you're guesstimating how much yarn is needed for the number of sts to cast-on.
I hope this makes sense. Good luck!
Thanks, Beth. I'll try that. I found the instructions that say "use 1/2 - 1 inch per stitch" to be a little too broad, I mean, which is it? I know it depends on the size of the needles, but I hate having a too long tail and wasting yarn if I don't have to.
Post a Comment