June 30, 2024

Starting at the beginning of June, I’ve been making various swatches in random single balls of Aran acrylic in my stash to practice purling, and I’ve even started this pattern to test it out. But, if I’m going to be knitting 5 feet of this, I want it to be in a nice yarn that will result in a warm, useful scarf. So, I went diving in my stash and found these hanks of 100% wool which should be enough to make the scarf plus a matching hat and some fingerless mittens, probably to send off to college with Bryce.

I started for real yesterday and got to about row 60 today but I’ve decided I don’t like the bumpy edges, so I’m going to rip it out and go a little off pattern to add a sl st purlwise at the beginning of every row. I’m not impressed with the tension of my ribbing but that’s what practice is for I guess. Blocking should help.

July 8, 2024

This came with me to our long weekend at Westerly, RI. It was perfect for knitting in the car ride there and back, on the hotel balcony, and even Misquamicut Beach! We stayed in the Hotel Maria which made me smile.

July 20, 2024

I pretty much neglected this while finishing my Shiny Blanket, so now I want to finish this WIP before moving on to any other projects.

As of now it’s 7” wide x 27” long and I haven’t quite finished the first cake of yarn.

July 21, 2024

Well, that was annoying but I guess I should consider it educational.

I discovered what I now think was an extra yarnover from the previous row (from a purl done not quite right) and made a mess trying to fix it. I ended up searching in YouTube for “how to insert a lifeline multiple rows below in garter stitch”. AND THEN I messed that up by choosing the wrong row of purls after the ribbing section and had to insert a second one even further down. I lost more time faffing around with that and re-knitting several inches. For several hours of work, I now only have about 3 more inches of progress to show for it.

For this reason, I do think knitting is harder to learn than crochet. If I had made the same mistake in crochet, it would have taken about 15 seconds to pull out stitches back to where I messed up. Sigh. But again, on the educational side, I now have a better understanding of stitch anatomy and hopefully will be better at identifying the problem and fixing it more efficiently next time.

July 27, 2024

Done and blocked!

During blocking I did notice a few places in the ribbing where I knitted instead of purled or vice versa but close enough! I also need to research how to sew in ends more invisibly in knitting. But it blocked out nice and rectangular and should be very functional when winter comes. (Since it’s 85º F, I let my deck post model it. )