First, I owe thanks to some people.
In yesterday’s comments, Chery suggested I have a look at Overstock.com to see what they had for knitting books. Turns out they have a lot - most at substantially reduced prices. Their shipping terms are very good as well. Definitely a site to bookmark and check on periodically! Thanks for the tip Chery - if I go bankrupt, it’s your fault :)
Second, I received a package yesterday from Bron - a selection of magazines and leaflets with some of the most beautiful crocheted lace you have ever seen. I have adaptive ideas for this and right now my imagination is running riot with all the lovely possibilities. Thanks so much Bron! If I go blind - it’s your fault :)
Okay - I worked another small, flat swatch yesterday.
People really do this?
It came out reasonably well but was a major pain in the tuchus and took forever. It’s the purling part that’s the disaster. I don’t think I held the yarns (Lion brand Microspun, if you care) the same way on any of the purl rows. Do-able? Yes. Desirable? Well….
So, out came the DPNs for a try at something smaller than a bag.
Now, quite a while back, when I was trying to figure whether using 5 DPNs was better than using 4, Jerry Gaiser (I think) commented that working on three needles (and using the fourth to knit with) provided a more stable structure than working on four and knitting with the fifth - at least in the initial rounds.
Over the last couple of months, whenever I decided to have another go at knitting with the hedgehog, I’ve been trying to do it with 5 needles and finding it incredibly awkward. Last night, I tried it with four. And what do you know! Even with the stranding, it wasn’t too bad. I suppose it has something to do with the angles of the needles? With the work on four needles, the needles were always getting in the way requiring more in the way of digital calisthenics than made for comfortable knitting - at least for me. With the work on three needles, I found that I could work relatively easily and without feeling as though I was trying to pat my tummy and rub my head at the same time :) I can’t speak to the stability issue except to note that working with the Microspun on metal needles wasn’t a problem - everything stayed where it was supposed to and I had no problem with ladders or with needles falling out of stitches!
21 stitches
It was a little weird at first, but I got the hang of it quickly and went round and round for a while :) It occurred to me that as there were 21 stitches, a 4 stitch pattern would spiral up around the tube. So I tried that - and it worked.
The Spiral Dance?
I hadn’t thought about the possibility of taking advantage of the fact that a knitted tube is a spiral! That presents some interesting possibilities. In the picture above, I was just doing 3 blue stitches followed by one cream stitch. This is offset by one stitch on every round so that the design moves diagonally up the tube. Kinda cool :)
Clearly there’s a lot to learn here. I even dug out on of my books and read the stranded knitting section - which I hadn’t looked at before. It had some nice tips and some pretty patterns (though it assumes you’re a continental knitter). The book is Stanfield and Griffiths’ “The Encyclopedia of Knitting” which I have found very useful. BTW, it is available at Overstock for about half what I paid for it :)
Have a great weekend everyone, and, in memory of my own mom who I’ve been missing lately, Happy Mother’s Day!
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Well, it sounds as you are almost ready for steeks so you are not condemned to a life of knitting round things. I found the steeked snowflake which I knit a while ago and then lost, and this weekend I’m going to sew it and cut it, taking photos all the while. Stay tuned to my blog, Ms. R!
Ms. R :) - Have you been reading my mind? Get out of there, it’s a mess! LOL! Yes, I’ve been thinking about it as now I can see that it’s a natural result of not wanting to knit the stranded stuff back and forth - and I now understand why that’s the case. So I shall watch your progess with avid interest! Glad you found your swatch :)
Hey, glad you looked at overstock! I’m sorry it’s my fault, I don’t even get any commission. . . I like it when I get a good tip from readers. Your pictures are great, wish mine were as ‘artful’. As for hot… the breeze was really blowing, so not so bad. I hate humidity, I hide in the shade or in the house. We’re going to get thunderstorms, I hope, on Sunday and Monday. That is my second favorite weather, the first being ice and snow. I gotta move north!
Pretty cool experimenting, Robbyn. Hope all this colorwork doesn’t leave you “stranded.” (hehehehe….hey! Quit throwing things & groaning…it sounded funny in my head - honest!)
ANYWAY - I found that I prefer 4 dpns over 5 also. I definitely think it’s the angle of the needles. I find I’m more adept at holding a triangle in my left hand rather than a square. That is, when I’m forced to use the little buggers. hehehe
Chery - I think your photographs are great - always neat, uncluttered and CLEAR! Thunderstroms?!? I don’t mind the turbulence but I hate the big bang!
Bron - Nice to see someone else has had the same experience with the DPNs. Despite repeated assertions to the contrary, I find I keep coming back to them. Nuts!
Love the Flower Drops pic - is that a pieris? Do you find metal DPNs heavy or slippery to work with, by the way?
Hi Pam :) I have no idea what the flowers are. I took the picture at the zoo last week just because I thought they were really pretty.
I don’t seem to have problems with metal DPNs. I’ve tried wooden ones but they “stick” too much for my taste - at least with the yarns I tend to use. The one exception (of the wooden needles that I have been able to try so far) is ebony - they’ve worked beautifully with every yarn I’ve used them on. Don’t have any ebony DPNs though.
I do find wooden needles useful for novelty and slippery yarns but for socks and the usual “nappy” yarns I’ll take metal needles every day. I don’t find them heavy or cumbersome to work with.
Overstock.com is book mecca! I’ve spent the gross national product of some small countries on books there in the past year.
I like metal needles also, I have a tendency to break the smaller size wooden ones.
LOL - I know what you mean about spending on books. There are times I don’t dare go into a book store :)
I haven’t used wooden DPNs, but when I was working on something on size 1s and doing a K2tog, I kept thinking if these weren’t metal I’d have snapped them by now.
