Casting On

My second blanket is underway and it feels like deja vu with the start of my last blanket. Casting the stitches on the needle and doing the first few rows is my least favorite part of the knitting process. I feel defeated because the first row looks like something has gone horribly wrong, so I constantly feel inclined to restart the blanket, which ends in frustration. However, if I ignore the strange looking start and continue stitching I realize it is normal and just needed a few more rows to make that apparent.

The preparation for this blanket is where I did most of my observing. I discussed with my house mom and she showed me some of the sweaters and blankets that she had knit for her grand-children. One sweater caught my eye that made a ribbed pattern that still looked manageable for a beginner. She explained the pattern, which was very simple: she knit 7 rows and purled 1 row. However, she used size 7 needles while I was using size 50, so we decided that knitting 4 rows and purling 1 row would produce a similar pattern since the stitches are a lot bigger with my needles. I have been knitting in between studying for my upcoming exams, and so far the resulting pattern looks pretty cool:

I am knitting this blanket for my mom who saw the blanket I knit for my bed and had to have one. She is so excited to have this for her room, and that was exactly the point of me learning how to knit blankets in the first place. If you recall from my first post, one of the reasons I chose to learn how to knit as my quest was to bring joy and comfort for my family, and the happiness in my mom's voice when I told her I had started knitting her blanket was confirmation that I am on the right track to keeping the tradition of knitting blankets for our loved ones in the family. I plan on finishing the blanket before I head home on Thursday, and I can't wait to see my mom's face when I hand her the final product.

Take 2

I have my yarn! I have been talking with my house mom over the past week when I had time between studying in the library, and we figured out the best plan of action. I showed her many patterns and ask how do-able they were, and unfortunately she did not know how to teach the more complex pattern. After we talked we realized that it would be best for me to keep it simple and master the basics better.

I realized that because I needed  to buy so much yarn to make a blanket, I would rather make one that looks good and then be able to go from there one day to make a better blanket that I know I won't mess up. When I realized that I would have to look at the perl stitch online again in order to be able to start my blanket, I knew that it wasn't time to move on to more complex things. When our guest lecturer came and talked about practice and the importance of it, the lecturer mentioned that it took at least 10,000 hours of practice to master something. While I don't think I will reach that any time soon, I realize that I need more practice before I can go onto bigger and better things.

Let's see how much knitting I can get done in between studying for my finals!

Drowning in Yarn!!