Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Needles and Needles

I am working on a couple of projects, one knitting and one sewing, one almost completed and one just getting started.


On my knitting needles I am about to finish my first pair of toe-up socks. First let me say I am not a "Knitter". Only in the past 3 or 4 years have I started knitting again and I knit my first pair of socks about 2 years ago. I just walked into my LYS and said to Hannah, "I want to knit socks. Fix me up." Wisely, she handed me Sensational Knitted Socks and sat me down to read. I walked out with the book, dpns, and yarn. I had little trouble, except they were way too big when I finished. So recently, I undid them, washed the yarn and picked a different pattern from the same book, a smaller size and started over.


Since I didn't want to run out of yarn I thought I should do them toe-up. I hadn't done toe-up socks even though I hear them talked about on a lot of podcasts and had seen them in all the sock books I have purchased. I ended up using a toe-up sock pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks book. I had a terrible time with the cast-on and Tweeted about my problems. Heather Ordover from Craftlit came to my rescue with the Magic Cast On from Knitty.com. I've been happily knitting since and am about finished. Yeah!


On the sewing side of the needle issue I am starting a table scarf for DD1. It is made from green duppoini silk. I had in my head I would do a decorative hemstitch. I bought the wing needle and sat down to work last night. Boy, did I find out there is a whole lot more to a decorative hemstitch. Right now I am doing my homework. Luckily I have the book, Fine Machine Sewing by Carol Laflin Ahles. She does a great job of explaining how to do hemstitching. I will be practicing a lot before tackling the actual table scarf. But I'm looking forward to learning this new skill.

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