Foray Back Into Knitting

First some history and about this blog...


I first learned how to knit from my grandmother about 10 years ago. She taught me how to cast on, the knit stitch, purl stitch, and how to cast off. I practiced the garter and the stockinette stitches. However, I'm notoriously bad at completing projects, so even though I'd since started 5 different knitting projects, I only used (and relearned) casting off for the first time last week. Up until then, I didn't know what a garter or stockinette stitch was, nor what blocking or a gauge were.
About 12 days ago, I picked up a scarf I'd been working on intermittently. It was the only one of my projects that was consistent in width that I also had enough yarn to complete, or so I'd thought. But for the life of me, I could not find my 3rd ball of yarn! The knitting bug had bitten me though, so when I found myself at Wal-Mart the next day, I grabbed some 6mm bamboo needles, and 2 balls of Bernat Handicrafter yarn, and got ambitious. For the first time ever, I looked at the pattern inside of the label... Mother's Day was in one day, and I still hadn't bought anything for my mom... time to make a dish cloth! 

Mother's Day Gift

The dish cloth was finished within the day (my fastest, neatest knitting ever; completely uniform and no dropped stitches). She understood the significance of a completed project from me, and doesn't have the heart to dirty it as a dish cloth, so she puts her glasses on it at night instead.


Next, I found an old ball of the same yarn, and there was a more complex pattern inside the label, so with the Bernat website helping me understand the abbreviations, and youtube showing me how they were done, I made another one-day dish cloth. (I mean really, when I saw 'k2tog' I just thought of the Australian term for swim trunks.)

A more complex pattern including yarn over and knitting two together.

While browsing around the Bernat website, I happened upon a link to a "KAL", or knit-a-long. Just a few months ago, they had run a 2012 Mystery Afghan CAL/KAL, (C being for crochet). I'd never thought of attempting such a huge project, surely I'd never come close to completing it! But then I saw some pictures of the completed blankets, and fell in love. I knew I had to try... I mean, it was only squares, and I'd just completed two squares in two days! So here I am. Like my knitting, my past blog quickly fell into disarrayed, intermittent use. I figure I can keep up the blogging if I do it with a specific project, and I can give my fingers a rest from my knitting while I type. 
I do tend to ramble on, sorry! This first post should be an indication of that. I'll at least try to stay related to knitting though. So here we go!


Things I learned:

• how to k2tog
• how to yo
• how to cast off (relearn)
• importance of lot number in relation to yarn colour