An Aside with Practice

In my first two posts, I skipped the learning of a few other knitting-related skills and tidbits that didn't quite fit in, but were learned in the last week as well. 

I bought some point protectors at Wal-Mart today because I learned that I can't put my needles in this yarn to keep my stitches on them; the yarn is just too... loose? I had put them in, and when I was knitting later, I came across some fuzzy, wider parts where I figured my needles pushed through the string of yarn, gross. 

I also learned the proper method of how to k1p1, and how to "inc 1 st in first st", or knit in the front and back of a stitch. Both of these I learned while whiling the time away by working on a practice piece of knitting, while waiting for my car. I started with the k1p1, which was... disastrous. 

I'd recalled my grandmother mentioning that there was a style in knitting that used knitting and purling back and forth all in one row. When I finished my second dish cloth, I took out my old practice piece, and started by knitting a few rows. Then I did a row of k1p1... I ended up "frogging" more than half of the old work I'd had on there, let alone the new part. The problem was, I was just going from what I knew about each stitch in their own rows, how I'd knitted before, so I didn't know I had to move my yarn to the front before each purl stitch, and to the back for each knit stitch. The result was the most frustrating thing I've encountered in knitting. 

I wanted to pull my hair out when trying to knit the next row from this!

In trying to knit my next row, I lost tons of stitches, and made even more from just where my yarn crossed over. Before I even finished my doomed attempt, I Googled how to unravel my work, and found out how some could be salvaged by putting my needle in further down, and frogging (unraveling) it, until it reached the needle, where it would stop. I did just that, and then waited a day before seeing a video showing me how to k1p1, and going from there. 

Once I'd done a fair amount of that pattern, (the broken rib pattern, which I found here), I tried two patterns from the Bernat website: the single basketweave, and the oat stitch. The oat stitch is what I used to learn how to knit into the front and back of a stitch, and has come in handy for clue 1 of the KAL. 
Finally, I learned about blocking. Blocking is mentioned as something we should do with the KAL, and everything I read made me more unsure about it. It seemed great because I can make sure all of my blocks are the same size for assembly, and make them bigger if I have to. It'll also straighten out my stitches, and lay down any curly or wavy bits of the blocks. But then I read that blocking acrylic is hard to do, and if done by steam (which seems to be the only way to do it properly for acrylic yarn), you run the risk of "killing" your yarn, or melting it so it is no longer elastic... great for a kid's blanket, not so much for this project. 
I've decided to use some pins I picked up at Wal-Mart, on the ironing board, with the iron. I'll do what's been suggested online and that I've seen in videos: hold the iron an inch or two above the project for a few seconds and pat it with your hand if needed. I'd rather start with less steam than too much, so I'll be cautious, and since my squares are smaller than expected, I'll be waiting until I've knitted them all and I'm ready to assemble them before blocking them. 


Things I learned:

• what point protectors are
• how to properly k1p1 (arrgh!)
• how to knit into the front and back of a stitch
• what frogging is
• how to put your needle into your project, to only frog up to a point
• the broken rib pattern
• the single basketweave
• the oat stitch
• how to block (in theory), what it even is, and why it's important