Showing posts with label knitting Continental style. Show all posts
Showing posts with label knitting Continental style. Show all posts

Tuesday, 15 April 2008

(Not) Knitting the Bluebell Socks

Oooh wonderful, I thought, two colour knitting, in some of my favourite colours.

I'd done some two-colour knitting recently & realised I needed the practise - it's been a long time. Oh, the finished legwarmers looked ok, & worked (so our daughter tells me), I just wasn't that happy with they way they'd knitted up.

So I found a wonderful blue woollen yarn, & a ball of Opal Planete in lots of shades of green, plus some leftover turquoise & some pale green. Go for the "full bluebell woods in the spring with all the other leaves coming out & blue sky" look, I thought.

Then I started knitting. & came up with the idea I'd seen blogged about of knitting with one colour in each hand. Which is where things began to go pear shaped.
  • Step 1 - try knitting the sock that way. Oh dear, the needles, which are metal, keep slipping out, & I'm wondering how to cope with holding the dpns & the yarn in my left hand (I knit English style).
  • Step 2 - get two needles & some more yarn. Try teaching myself to knit Continental style. How do you hold the yarn in your left hand so it runs evenly?
  • Step 3 - get on with knitting other projects. One really is winter knitting & now that Spring has sprung . . .
  • Step 4 - go visit some bluebell woods locally cos they're coming out right now. Yup, colours are a good likeness.
  • Step 5 - decide these socks are very nice but I'm not going to make the April deadline. Not this year anyhow.
  • Step 6 - visit our local DIY shop to see whether they sell 2.75mm diameter dowelling.
  • Step 7 - make a set of 2.75mm dpns or, if answer to Step 6 was "No"
  • Step 7(alternative) - traipse off to LYS & buy some wooden 2.75mm dpns.
  • Step 8 - wonder if it's really all worth it for a pair of socks.
Of course it is. Come the hot weather, cos we might get hot weather this year, they'll be ideal knitting, & the aran cardigan won't be.

So they're currently in the wip pile. I shall return to them, honest! Once I've mistressed knitting Continental style on two needles, then on (wooden) dpns & at a decent speed!