The long road to the long tail

Up, over, through, tighten. That's it!

I'm not joking when I say that I pored over this video and tried to emulate the long-tail cast on technique for an hour and a half. I had no trouble with "up" and "over", but I wasn't exactly sure where "through" was. There was nothing to "tighten". I was ready to say, "That's it!" It wasn't going well. I made one stitch by accident, and I couldn't duplicate it.

I checked The Knitting Answer Book to see if it might provide the answer. As it turns out, it does have the pertinent information I needed; it just didn't sink in. (There isn't a diagram of the step where I was having problems, which didn't help either.) So I must say a big thank you to Miss Ewe for her comment the other day that directed me to the tutorial that made it click.

The critical instruction I wasn't getting elsewhere was in step 4: "Remove your thumb from the loop and pull on tail to tighten stitch (avoid making too tight!)." The book says, "4. Let the loop slide off your thumb. 5. Put your thumb behind the long tail and use it to tighten the loop." It seems obvious now, but I didn't know what loop the book meant. Surely I didn't want to let go of the loop that was keeping the tension. Of course, that's exactly what I needed to do, but I wasn't getting it. Everything is there in the video, but I was so focused on watching the needle that I didn't notice that the loop came off her thumb.

After a lot of sweat and swears, I finally got it.

Having conquered this, working in k1p1 should have been cake, right?

On my second round I noticed that I was off by one stitch. Ugh! How in the world did I drop a stitch?! I unknitted back to the problem spot--at least I found it--and then had to figure out how to fix it. The crochet hook I have is too big, but I remembered that my mom had found a small one in my grandma's possessions and given it to me. I rooted through my tub of yarn and needles and eventually found it. I hadn't needed it before, but it saved me tonight. I picked up the stitch and returned to knitting in rib. Also, I accidentally knit the tail into a stitch, but I caught it early enough that I was able to pull it out.

There haven't been any other problems...yet. I've finished the ribbing for the leg and am ready to embark on knitting the heel. I suspect more problems await, so I'm going to call it a night on the sock. Here's it's current status.

I know a couple who will be having a baby girl any day now. The practice socks will go to them.

In other knitting news, I salvaged the dishcloth that I threatened to frog entirely. I needed a break from the aggravation. I undid the stitches in pattern, something that I didn't think I could do, and moved along. I probably have about half of it done. I went out to by some other US 7s for starting a second dishcloth in the event that sock knitting was a disaster again. They'll be useful to have, but for now, everything is back on track.