:Knit:

30DOC: New Skills

Nicky5 Comments

With not much time left in June, I’m just going to pick some topics from this series and do them as I feel inclined.

Life itself is a learning experience and I believe opportunities to develop new skills — whether it’s personally, professionally or creatively — come to us everyday.

Would it surprise you if I said the person who knitted:

knitted

as recently as yesterday?

Although I know I knit them, they don’t even look like they both came from the same hand, especially in the order that they did come.  This, however is not an exaggeration or a trick.  I really did knit both pieces — doing the Feather and Fan lace sample a few months after I learned to knit and the green — I don’t know what you’d call that — yesterday.  What does all this have to do with learning a new skill?  Let me tell you.  🙂

If you’ve been on this blog long enough, you’ll hear me say often — I’m a slow knitter.  I’m learned to throw and my throwing method is the slower of the two alternatives.  That is, I release my right hand needle, move the yarn over the left needle with my hand (instead of flicking with my index finger) in order to create stitches.  

I finish stuff but not fast enough or let me say — not as fast as I’d like to.   To that end, I’ve decided to learn the continental method of knitting.  

The hand movements are precise and more efficient, resulting in faster knitting.   The purl stitch looks crazy, but I even tried that last night. 😀  If you look at the green swatch closely, between all the dropped and wrecked stitches, you can see a little teeny tiny bit of stockinette stitch peeping out in the middle of the sample.

Now some might say “what’s the big deal?  You can knit already, why go through this?  They might be right, but I want to do this for me.  I put it on the list of things I wanted to complete in knitting this year and I think by the end of summer’s dog days, I should have a rhythm and be able to do it faster, having beautifully finished pieces instead of a replica of that green monster above.  😀

That said, what are you?  Are you a thrower or a picker?

What I’ve Been Up To …

NickyLeave a comment

I can’t show you!!!!

No, I’m not going mad, I just can’t show.  But I can give you an idea of what it is until I could actually post pics.  What I can tell you is this:

  • It’s my first completed lace project
  • It’s my first project ever using only a chart and not written instructions
  • It’s my first blocking project ever 

Even saying all that is giving too much away (in case my recipient is “casing this joint for clues” … 😀 )  The reason I can’t show you is because it’s part of a swap and I’ve not yet mailed the package to the recipient.   In order to not spoil the surprise … I have to wait until she receives her package before I post pictures of it on my Rav project page and on here.  I know, I know … whomp, whomp.  😦

On another note though, I love swaps.  I love stalking my recipient and so far, I’ve received great swap packages that have totally decimated my years, and years, and years of disgusting, unusable, unloved swap and Secret Santa packages.  Giveaways on the other hand,  I typically don’t enter and that’s because I’ve only ever won one time so far in my lifetime, AND I don’t want to be that person who enters EVERY SINGLE giveaway (don’t go on like you don’t know there are chronic giveaway entrants 😛 ) but never visit the giver’s blog on a regular NON-GIVEAWAY basis.

However, in the spirit of passing the word along and also to spotlight a great resource Hannah at NotYourAverageCrochet is having a giveaway to celebrate the number of followers she’s gotten in the last couple of months.  Like I said, I don’t typically enter giveaways but I did enter this one.   Although I don’t always comment, I visit both her blogs multiple times every week (her crochet projects are to die for).  I love her enthusiasm for yarn crafts and her project ideas from around the web are very inspiring.  She’s one of the first people to follow my own blog (although I haven’t done much in the last couple of months).  She dropped by at a time when I thought only my real-life friends were interested in what I had to say and blog about.  It was very encouraging to know that someone else was interested in what I had to share.  So drop by if you’re a yarnie, hooker or craft-aholic like the rest of us.  Entering her giveaway is very easy!  Even if you don’t win, her blog content is worth the visit … trust me!!!!