I've "mastered" the basic stitch, that is a "knit" stitch, so I figured it was time to learn the other basic stitch, the "purl". This did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. To knit a stitch, you place the needle behind the existing stitch, to purl, the needle goes in front. This was apparently mind-boggling to me. I could not understand this very basic concept, and it drove me up the wall.
So I set all of my knitting aside for a few months. Fast forward to Friday. I came across a lovely pattern for something called a Cable Knit scarf. I was intrigued. It was soooo pretty, and when I looked at the pattern, it looked like something I could actually do! It was only knit and purl stitches, that's simple right?
Oh right, I have no idea how to purl. Oh well, I thought to myself, how hard can it be to learn? Haha-haha-haha... Oh, I'm so dumb sometimes. :o)
I sat down, grabbed my knitting needles and some grey scrap yarn and stating knitting. The pattern I'm working off of calls for 42 stitches, so I cast them onto my needle and got started. And surprisingly enough, the purl stitches weren't that bad. I was so busy concentrating on the pattern that I forgot that I suck at purling.
After a few rows of very intensive knit and purl work, I had something that looked like this:
I know it doesn't look like a whole lot, but I was super proud of it. Until I got to the third row and discovered that somehow I had 43 stitches. Shit. Now what? Pull the whole thing off of my needles, start over. Okay, I can do that, it's not a big deal.
Cast on 42 stitches again, start knitting. Mess something up, unravel the piece, cast on again.
Repeat this about 7 times.
The 7th time I restarted my piece I actually made it all the way to row 8, which is the cable row. To cable knit, you need to take a few stitches off of the needle and hold them out of the way while you knit the stitches behind them. Then you bring those stitches back up and knit them. This gives you a really cool crossing-over look. The first row of cabling was dificult and the stitches probably came our a bit too tight, but I did it!
I put the arrow in so you can see exactly where the stitches cross over. Isn't that cool? I was so happy that I was able to do the cabling, that the next set of rows went really well. To make this scarf, there is a pattern of knit and purl stitches that repeats for seven rows, and the eight is the cable row. Then, you simply repeat those eight rows until the scarf is as long as you want it to be.
So, after I successfully completed my first cable row, I started back at row 1 to repeat the pattern. I made it all the way to my second cabling row. It was harder than the first one, but I thought I'd done it well, until I realized that I had added an extra stitch... again.
Arggg!!! Unravel the whole thing, start over, again...
Fast forward a bit to attempt number 9. I've made it through two cabling rows, and once again, I'm feeling pretty optimistic about this scarf. I might actually finish it one of these days! Plus, I'm at the point where this is actually staring to look like a scarf:
I'm psyched to finish this one up and start wearing it. The way things are going around here, I'm going to need it. Cold is coming.
Okay, that's enough of that, don't you think? I'll be back soon with more new and exciting posts about what I'm knitting, or reading, or watching, or other boring things like that. I kid, I kid, I know you guys love this stuff, don't you?
*UPDATE*
I think I've finally mastered this pattern, what do you think?
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