knit; magic loop; knitting in a round

I made up my mind this year to become a serious knitter. Serious aka not be intimidated by socks/gloves/mittens, by super intense lace knitting, continental knitting, knitting in the round, and the magic loop. This weekend, I moved a couple of steps closer to accomplishing that — I magic looped!!!! I can now cross this technique off my 2012 knitting resolutions list!!!!

I had a couple of false starts but after those couple of attempts, once I got going I definitely saw the ease of using the magic loop technique. I know some knitters complain about sliding the stitches back and forth between the cable and the needles, but even with that, the technique is so much easier in my opinion than dpns. This is not to say that I wouldn’t eventually learn how to knit in the round with dpns, but at this point, magic loop is where it’s at baby!!! Once I got over my initial hurdles, I felt like this:

But I know how I felt is not what’s important — proof of my looping is. 😀 So here’s my sample:

The sample is not perfect. With the first couple of rows, I thought I was doing the technique wrong (and obviously I was — Enter into Evidence those two garter stitch rows 😳 ), but after a few more rows, my little tube started to emerge. Success!!!! 😀 I need to work on tightening the connecting round stitches to prevent holes but that’ll come with practice. And I need to follow the instructions to count rows accurately.

Although I am a visual learner, the best instruction I got for magic loop is from a small booklet “The Magic Loop” Bev Galeskas and Sarah Hauschka I got in a in my first Ravelry swap. Thanks Robine!!!! 😀

It was a wonderful way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.