It was a bit of a shock to be pulled up short by the christening shawl I'm currently working on. The knitted lace (not lace knitting) section required me to knit two together. Easy! Anyone can do that. The problem was that the two stitches to be knit together were a knit and a yarn over.
Looking at the potential stitch, it seemed that the only way to knit it was to knit through the back of the two stitches, lest the YO become a tightly stretched thread and the hole it created disappear. So I tried that. It worked, but the twisted stitch looked completely out of place.
I decided to look it up on Ravelry - where would we be without it? According to the pattern listing, no-one else had any problems with row 105. I seriously contemplated messaging the creator, Dorothy Siemens, to ask what to do.
After about 20 minutes of hesitation I gave up and went to bed. Yesterday morning, in a brief moment of "Quick! He's asleep!" I decided to try again.
I looked at the two stitches again, looked at the pattern - still K2tog - and did just that. The YO didn't pull tight, the hole was relaxed and lovely and I learned a very valuable lesson: designers do actually know what they're doing, especially with lace. I think I know so much about knitting just because I've been knitting for years (31 years this March) yet something like this has pulled me up.
Knitting resolutions for the year? Find out more. Read up on the history of what I love, find new techniques (I used cable cast on until I was 28. Pffffffft!) which are always brought up on Ravelry, challenge myself more. This could be a little hard with Marcus around, but if I have to get up at 5am every morning to do it, then I will.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
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3 comments:
i imagine it is harder now than before to do clever stuff like the shawls you used to do before Marcus - but we don't ever know everything - it's true -and and new things we learn are so great!
The lovely thing about knitting is that there is always something new to refine or learn.
I guess it's always nice when simply following the directions as written works perfectly!! Although sometimes it's hard not to question if we're doing it right.
I loved your list of knitting resolutions!!
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