I'm really hating how stupid and dazed this smog makes me feel. I just want to stay indoors all day and do sedentary things so that the lightheadedness doesn't bother me. While I'm at it, I thought I'd put up some pictures of a scarf I knitted recently.
Amanda picked the seafoam green colour for her scarf in a nubbly wool by Panda called Vervale. I got four balls of it at Spotlight and stupidly failed to check the meterage on each ball. Before this scarf, I didn't even know such a thing existed. I would measure the yarn in my palm attempting to guess how many skeins I would need, without realising that the springiness of the yarn added bulk.
Where most of the balls I've purchased would cover up to a hundred metres when unfurled, the silly Vervale yarn only went up to 38 metres because of its nubbles. I remember feeling horrified when the first skein ran out and I couldn't even wrap the material round my neck.
When I went back to Spotlight for extras, I decided to surprise Amanda with one ball of cream coloured yarn and a contrast at the tip (thankfully, she liked it!). I learnt my biggest new lesson here - how to join two colours together! Look at the ridiculously small mileage one ball gives.
I cast on 28 and knitted a slightly larger rib with a 3 x 2 pattern. Despite all the yarn misadventures, I'm really pleased with the way it looks!
Lessons learnt from Amanda's scarf:
1) Check the damn meterage! I don't know how this didn't occur to me before. At 38m, for a barely 60 inch scarf, you're going to need at least six balls.
2) When a wool is nubbly, it's more difficult to see whether you're knitting or purling because everything looks like purl bumps. Sometimes it's better to knit a little more tightly so that you can see what you're doing.
3) On the plus side, the wavy yarn hides all manner of sins and the edges of the scarf tighten up very nicely.
4) Stockinette stitch curls like crazy. If you want to make an entire scarf in stockinette, it will become a tube. I didn't make Amanda's scarf in stockinette but I stumbled upon this information this month.
5) Learning to join two colours was my biggest triumph yet. I tried to learn from youtube when I first started out but I was far too new to knitting to understand what the woman in the video was saying. I joined solid colours with an invisible knot.
After a while though, the steps finally started to make sense to me. It's important to find a video that you can understand and if you're a beginner, I think it really helps when the person in the video knits with the same hand movements that you do. I spent far too long staring at people who tensioned with their left hand and wondering what the hell they were doing.
When I went back to Spotlight for extras, I decided to surprise Amanda with one ball of cream coloured yarn and a contrast at the tip (thankfully, she liked it!). I learnt my biggest new lesson here - how to join two colours together! Look at the ridiculously small mileage one ball gives.
I cast on 28 and knitted a slightly larger rib with a 3 x 2 pattern. Despite all the yarn misadventures, I'm really pleased with the way it looks!
Lessons learnt from Amanda's scarf:
1) Check the damn meterage! I don't know how this didn't occur to me before. At 38m, for a barely 60 inch scarf, you're going to need at least six balls.
2) When a wool is nubbly, it's more difficult to see whether you're knitting or purling because everything looks like purl bumps. Sometimes it's better to knit a little more tightly so that you can see what you're doing.
3) On the plus side, the wavy yarn hides all manner of sins and the edges of the scarf tighten up very nicely.
4) Stockinette stitch curls like crazy. If you want to make an entire scarf in stockinette, it will become a tube. I didn't make Amanda's scarf in stockinette but I stumbled upon this information this month.
5) Learning to join two colours was my biggest triumph yet. I tried to learn from youtube when I first started out but I was far too new to knitting to understand what the woman in the video was saying. I joined solid colours with an invisible knot.
After a while though, the steps finally started to make sense to me. It's important to find a video that you can understand and if you're a beginner, I think it really helps when the person in the video knits with the same hand movements that you do. I spent far too long staring at people who tensioned with their left hand and wondering what the hell they were doing.
I've started on the next one and it involves my next mini challenge: yarn overs. Pictures soon. For now, I'm going to bed now to try to avoid feeling any worse. Good evening!
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