Saturday, February 17, 2007

oh my doG oh my doG oh my doG

I've started. I let the CO sweater sit for almost three days before picking it up and diving in. I'm still a bit cautious, but I'm thinking this will result in hopefully (knock on wood) the first knitted item I've made with NO mistakes (I mean hand made qualities showing). It's soft. It's amazing. It's liquid. It feels like the most amazing piece of clothing I will ever wear. I will get pet (yeah, cuz that doesn't sound dirty at all). I will LIVE in this sweater.

I made everyone at the coffee shop this morning feel the yarn (well, the regulars I know). One guy, Paul, said he'd have sex with that yarn it felt so good. I promptly yanked the yarn from his grasp. :) I'm totally geeking out about this sweater, I know.

Knitters who read this: What was knitting your first sweater like for you? Were you blissed out? Were you freaked out? Were you as excited as me? Please, tell me you were even if you were not so I feel better about being such a knit nerd.

I am at work today. I have the sweater in my bag. I've just done the second of three reductions for the back. I then knit knit knit until the length reaches 14.5" before the confusion of "setting in" for the sleeves commences. This is where my knitterly friends will come into play. I am unsure of "bind off the first two stitches of the next two rows" means. I mean I know what that means, but in the graph it looks like the first two AND the last two of the row...

We'll cross that bridge when we get to it though.

2 comments:

FemaleCSGradStudent said...

My first sweater invovled about one week of attempting, two years of caution, and four contiguous weeks of knitting like I was on fire.

"Bind of the first two stitches of the next two rows."

Yeah. That binding bit is a bit scary the first time. Let's see what this looks like in ASCII:

Let - be a bound stitch
Let X be a regular stitch.

Pretend the picture below is the top of a sleeve. This is what happens when you "bind off the first two stitches of the next four rows."

--XXXXXX
XXXXXXXX--
--XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX--
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

1. Ignore what the graph looks like. You have to bind off at the begining of a row. Can't bind off at the end, doesn't work. Stuff unravels.

2. So if you bind off at the beginning of the next two rows, you start to see how the shaping happens, as in the ASCII graph above. But, in the actual knitting, the stitches are closer together, so it's not as wonky as in the ASCII.

Help? Maybe? Made it worse?

shannon said...

Little Ms! I love you!!! YOu make me smile. I will take my time and I will take deep breaths when I start this whole binding off bit...

I may call in a fit of "EEP!"