Friday, May 30, 2008

Angling as directed

The Chevron Stripes Hand Towel from Mason-Dixon Knitting is finally looking how it should. Sort of. The stockinette in the yellow stripes is slanting the opposite way of how it appears in the book, but there's no chance I'm going to let that difference bother me. Getting this WIP to this point has been enough of an ordeal.

Although just four of the twelve rows in the pattern have the increases and decreases, they're enough to make knitting it a longterm commitment. Seriously, this thing is going to take me forever to do. Two repeats down, only 25 to go.

I think I've got the hang of knitting in the front and back, although the job can be a tight one to accomplish. SKP hasn't been so bad, assuming that I'm doing it correctly. (I'm slipping knitwise, which is what one resource suggested the directions intend.) I had been somewhat intimidated by these techniques--silly, I know--but I've found that they're within my skill level. I might do well to knit more loosely, though. That's probably part of the reason why the rows with these techniques take me such a long time.

I'm using Knit Picks CotLin in Moroccan Red and Crème Brulee. The red sheds something fierce. I've noticed less of the yellow yarn all over my shirt.

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3 Comments:

At 11:31 PM, Blogger donnadb said...

Is SKP "slip, knit, pass slipped stitch over"? If so, I'd definitely slip purlwise. If you twist it by slipping it knitwise, it will be much more difficult to pass over (and the direction won't matter in the finished product since the stitch just ends up wrapping another stitch -- except to make it tighter and harder to do).

Pretty much the only time you slip knitwise when doing a decrease is SSK -- and that's because the slipped stitches are going to end up wrapping the made stitch the other way (left leaning instead of right leaning) -- untwisted, then, in the direction they end up lying.

 
At 9:22 AM, Blogger the secret knitter said...

Yes, that's what SKP is. I'm slipping knitwise--slipping the stitch with the needle in as if to knit--because that's what The Knitting Answer Book says to do. I'd slipped purlwise during my three previous attempts to start. Those slipped knitwise have been easier to pass over, FWIW.

I'm assuming I'm doing SKP and knitting in the front and back properly, but since I did SSK wrong every time I did it (and have since forgotten the right way), it's possible I'm doing my own thing here too.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 
At 3:04 PM, Blogger donnadb said...

Knitting front-and-back (kfb) is really easy. But every time I do it (or ktbl), I feel like it's named wrong. Knitting in the back loop involves putting the needle in from right to left -- what would be called purling on the front side. If you crank that needle around in back and put it in from left to right (which is very awkward), it's purling in the back loop. The other trick is to pull plenty of yarn through when you knit through the front loop (the first step) -- don't tension the yarn tightly. When you complete the stitch by knitting in the back loop, you can pull the working yarn like you normally do, and it will snug up the front loop stitch too.

If you scroll about midway down this page, you can click on a video.

 

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