Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Back to the basic

Basic Cup Cozy

Yarn: Adrienne Vittadini Bianca (100% extrafine merino wool; worsted weight) and Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted (100% superwash wool; worsted weight)
Color: Black (0600) and Pewter
Needles: US 6 circulars
Stitches: 42
Pattern: 3x3 rib

I really needed to knit today, but I didn't think I'd have an FO when all was said and done. This was one of those projects that snuck up on me. I wanted to do a little something for a friend, and this seemed like the quick and simple object best suited for the situation.

I wanted to try something a little different, so I pulled out Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book and looked at its stitch dictionary. I decided to try the diagonal cross rib, which has a left twist that produces a cable-like pattern. It requires knitting through the back loop, which I soon found was extremely trying for me. I ripped out once because I picked up an additional stitch the first time. I ripped out again when my stitch count was wrong three rows into it. I did not cast on for the diagonal cross rib pattern again.

I'm not sure how I kept getting the wrong number of stitches, but it happened twice. This was going a lot slower than I'd hoped, which was why I knew that diagonal cross rib would be better attempted some other time. I was getting frustrated, and I didn't have anything to show for the time I'd put into it. For all I know, I'm not even properly knitting through the back loop. (It certainly was no walk in the park.)

So I switched it up to 3x3 rib. A couple hours later I had finished and was generally pleased with the result. I probably bound off too tightly, but that shouldn't prevent the cozy from performing its function.

Really, it's too bad that I failed. I was excited about trying to do something different and adapting it for circular knitting. I don't know if I was correct in the assumptions I was making, but I think I was headed in the right direction.

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2 Comments:

At 1:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Looks good and there's nothing more gratifying than a quick finish.

Knitting into the back of the loop is knitting as normal, but putting your needle into the part of the stitch that is at the back of the needle rather than the bit at the front - that's not very clear is it?

 
At 4:14 PM, Blogger donnadb said...

There's a video on knitting through the back loop on this page (scroll down to ktbl in the glossary).

The thing that confused me at first was whether I needed to insert my needle left to right in the stitch, like I do in front. The answer is no -- when knitting through the back loop, you insert your needle right to left, on the back leg of the stitch.

Now PURLING through the back loop -- that's wretched.

 

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