Wot I have learned.

I have been very studious over the last couple of weeks, and have not been knitting for pleasure - well it was a pleasure but the projects were not things I would have picked. The beauty of doing a college course in knitting and crochet is being forced out of my comfort zone into choppy seas. (sorry about the sailing analogy it must be the wave patterns getting into my subconscious).

This term we are learning all about colour. The first exercise was intarsia. It was a simple little heart with spots.



Whilst the heart itself worked out quite well and I caught my threads the way I was taught, you can see the threads were a wee bit tight and as a result I have one misshapen blob of knitted mass. I don't think even blocking would help this terrible case. Thank goodness it was only an exercise or I would have been forced to frog it. I think I will keep my heart in my folder of work, to remind me of the mistakes I have made.

My second project is a V-necked tank top in fair isle. This is definitely a project I would not have chosen for myself, because I am not a big fan of fair isle. I prefer my knits to be made interesting with texture, rather than colour. However the project is certainly challenging, and I am sure that I will be very proud once the item is complete. To make life a little more interesting I have taught myself to knit two handed to prevent twisted yarn and it is very slow going at the moment. I do believe that as I get more assured in this technique the knitting will become more straight forward and much faster than knitting with only one strand at a time.



So far I have completed my swatch (see the waves!), the rib at the bottom and only about 5 rows of pattern. I have already unravelled around 3 and half rows, some of them twice. It is so hard to concentrate when people will insist on talking to me. For some reason that keeps happening at the knitting group - who'd a thunk it!

I am glad that I had already learnt my threads were too tight across the back. As you can see above, the swatch I did was much better than the heart swatch. I think the whole project will become easier with time, but I am not banking on it. I am only grateful that this is an ongoing project and we are not expected to finish it quickly, otherwise there would be one VERY disappointed tutor.