Afghans

I want to make a blanket. I have no idea what I want it to look like beyond I'd like it to look cool. I don't know if I want to knit or crochet it. I'm leaning towards something patchwork so I can carry it around. I know I know I know. If I'm going to be doing a patchwork afghan I should totally start crocheting my granny squares again instead of resigning myself to having plush, fuzzy coasters. But it takes a lot of yarn to do those and I can't carry them around easily. So I guess that means I should reball them but I haaate doing that because it means I have to spend a few hours holding an empty water bottle and winding yarn.

So, before I resign myself to a lifetime of granny squares and crochet hooks, are there any suggestions for a nice knitted afghan I could work on? One thing I am considering is making a memory afghan. Whenever something happens I'll knit myself a square commemorating it. But that would be a more long term project than what I'm looking at. So maybe my granny squares and the patchwork at the same time? And when am I ever going to do my socks? Actually, I'm going to do my socks at work (I have a new job as a receptionist and it is AWESOME!) as soon as I finish my mother's birthday scarf or run out of yarn for it and have to go buy more. Stay tuned, same bat time, same bat channel!

My Knitting Confessions

So here's the thing, if I were to make a list of my knitting skills, I have a lot.

No really, it's true! Think about it, I can:
-Knit
-Purl
-Cable
-Increase
-Decrease
-Make bobbles
-Knit in the round
-Use DPNs
-Write patterns
-Design garments
-Knit over 500 rows of garter stitch without attempting to stab myself (on that note, I'm over 50% done with the Doctor Who Scarf!)
-Read patterns
-Make ribbing
-"Get" gauge
-Take gauge
-Pick up stitches
-Rescue dropped stitches
-Join wool without tying or weaving in ends
-Sew on decorations
-Crochet two pieces together
-Block
-Knit and purl backwards (in pattern!)
-Knit with two different colors of yarn so that one side of the item is patterned one way and the other side has the opposite color scheme

And well, you get the idea. Don't get me wrong, there are still lots of things I'd like to learn to do. For one thing, I'm hoping to get up the balls to make a pair of socks this week. It's mostly the heel-turning that's flustering me, plus the fact that I don't know how much yarn I'll need to cover my feet. If I were being totally honest, it would be the yarn more than anything. I'd also like to make a wedding ring shawl before I get married, but first I need to master the finer points of lace. I am okay with that. I think learning things makes us grow as people. But if I were being really really honest, there is one thing I can't do that I'd desperately like to do and that I am bothered by not knowing:
Which stitch is knit and which is purl.

Don't get me wrong, I can perform both. I can perform both in a pattern. I can do both backwards and forwards! But I can never remember which one is which. Whenever I am reading a pattern, I have to grab one of my knitting books (lately it's been Knitting Without Tears by Maggie Righetti, primarily because I haven't finished it so it's sitting next to my bed...plus it's illustrated) and go back and read the section where either knitting or purling is described. Immediately afterwards, I forget which is which and only remember what the stitch for the pattern is. This is an absolutely idiotic failing on my part. Who can't keep two simple little stitches straight?! I'm doing a scarf for my mother right now that involves cabling every six rows and bobbling every 12 rows and I don't even need to use a row counter! But I still for the life of me cannot remember whether the forward stitch is knit or the backward one.

That is my True Knitting Confession. What's yours?

Yarn stores and such

So here's the thing, sometimes I get bored. I know I know, shocking, right? Anyway, when I get bored I knit. Well, usually I knit just in general. But when I'm bored I do it more. When I first moved to Texas, I was bored a lot. So I taught my step-siblings to knit. All three of them. The oldest boy and the girl got bored and quit pretty soon, but the 9 year old boy took a real shining to it. I had assumed he'd get bored soonish, so I had just given him a cheap red acrylic I had on hand. Well, he kept at it. Every time he was here since the first day he just kept on at it. I finally took him to the LYS. Primarily because once he found out it existed, he begged for a week. He had a great time. There were a few moments in time where I probably could have traded him for a nice sweater. I was sorely tempted.

He was actually the only child I saw there who was actually knitting. There was another little boy who was picking out yarn for a hat, but my step-brother was the only one who was actually sitting and knitting and looking at patterns he could make. He also helped me pick out yarn for my mother's birthday present. So I came up with a pretty cool scarf pattern I'll be posting as soon as my camera is working again. It's a scarf, because my mother actually went to Denver last week and didn't bring any winter clothes at all. She's brilliant.

Bad Dreams

So I had a nightmare last night that woke me up at 2 am and kept me awake until 10. The nightmare? Terminators were coming to kill me and I had to get to my car and escape but I kept going back in the house to get my yarn and I didn't make it out before he showed up to kill me.

That really says something about me as a person, but I'd much rather think about making socks than try to figure out when I became the kind of person who has dreams where they die because of all their knitting crap.

So, what's all this about then?

I first learned to knit when I was in elementary school. My grandmother taught my cousin and I about the same time. I had the common beginners issue that I knit far too tight, I dropped stitches, and could never figure out how to do stockinette (on purpose). I knit about 3 rows before deciding enough was enough and calling it quits. In fact, I didn't pick up a pair of needles once between the ages of 11 and 17. The tell-tale sign, though, was that I still loved yarn. When we would go to Wal-Mart, I could spend aaaaaages in the craft section looking at all the pretty fabrics and beads and....yarn. Just feeling it and looking at the colors.

When I was in high school, there was a brief fad towards knitting and so I went out and bought myself a skein of tacky acrylic pastel rainbow colored sport weight and a set of circulars. First, I only half remembered how to cast on and the only method I could remember left a long tail of yarn after I knit a row. Second, I couldn't make my circulars make a circle. I can't really explain how or why this happened, but I ended up with basically a strip of fabric with a single strand of yarn connecting one end to the other and I couldn't make the two ends come together to save myself. I also couldn't remember how to cast off, so I just threaded the end of the yarn through my loops and called it quits.

Finally, my senior year, I fell in with some freshman goth girls during a clothing design class. One of them knit scarves constantly. Suddenly, it clicked. I went out and bought myself a skein of fuzzy black yarn, a pair of size 9s, and I made myself a fantastically long garter stitch scarf. I loved it. It had finally clicked. That year, I made a second scarf of a similar length out of a pink striped baby yarn. Next year, I went to college and made a drop stitch chenille scarf and joined the knitting club. That's when I finally learned to crochet. When I left that school, I found myself floundering a bit and I no longer had any classes to knit in so I stopped for awhile. At the time, all my yarn and needles fit into a large tote bag someone had gotten as a Free Gift with Purchase from Clinique.

Last summer, I was referred to Ravelry and suddenly I became the girl who has an organizer hanging in her closet to hold the yarns, complains about how most commercial knitting bags scream "Grandma Sylvia's Bingo Knit Night" and only buys knitting magazines. I carefully put all my yarn in ziploc baggies with their weight and fiber content written on the front. I started my first projects based on patterns I didn't make up.

I have finally arrived.