Valentine's/ Anniversary Gift

A couple days late posting this, but my boyfriend knew just what to get me for our Valentine's day/ Anniversary celebration (the days are close together so we usually just merge them) - mostly because I told him 'Hey get me lots of yarn'. And here it is! Two large balls of red yarn! He got me an orange rose too, but by the time I got around to taking pics, they wilted already .. but anyway, I am very happy with this, and I already have an idea what to make!

Have You Reddit?

Hey everyone! While I've been working on my new project (hint: it is something on my checklist), I got stuck on this instruction in the pattern. I had no idea what it wanted me to do. I tried googling it, and figuring it out, even my faithful Youtube tutorials failed me. But, it all  just didn't make sense. Finally, after months of lurking on /r/knitting, (I mentioned it in a previous post before), I made an account and a first post asking for help. Seriously, within minutes someone answered me with exactly what I was looking for!! The community was so nice and helpful :) Soo... if anybody ever needs help, I totally recommend the website!

Anyway, keep posted for my upcoming project!! It might take a while because I consider it pretty hard. I hope it works out!

Beginner's mistakes

Who better to write about mistakes than a newbie knitter like me who has made so many? Here are a list of beginner's mistakes that I've made, and if you're new too, you should watch out for:

1. Accidental YO: In My First Circle Scarf there were many holes because as it was a ribbing pattern, I had no idea about moving the yarn to the front if its a purl, and to the back if its a knit. I searched up why I kept ending up with holes and extra stitches, and after starting over a couple times (or just kept soldiering on because at the time I didn't know how to fix mistakes), I finally realized this mistake.
2. Not pulling off old stitch: This was mentioned already in My First Project EVER where I didn't really understand knitting, and just had a vague idea of just going through the motions. Its another way where you end up with more stitches than you should.
3. Right sizes: A lot of projects were a lot tighter or looser than they should've been or smaller because I used the wrong knitting needles or yarn type. It's actually very important.  
4. Twisted stitches: This is for knitting in the round. When you connect the stitches together, make sure they're not twisted, and they all line up properly ... because if you don't you'll realize too late, its not a fixable mistake. The only thing you'll be able to do is rip the stitches out and start over.
5. Pay attention: I like to knit while attempting to watch TV or talk (key word: attempt because knitting takes a lot of focus for me. I'm pretty jealous of those people I see on the bus whose fingers are working away while they're doing something else and don't even need to glance down at what they're doing.) However, sometimes when I'm supposed to purl my knits or knit my purls or whatever, I do the opposite accidentally and have to go back and fix it (I almost feel like I spend more time undoing stitches than actually making them). On a related note, learn how to read you work! It saves a lot of headache. A noose means it was a knit stitch and a horizontal dash means it was a purl stitch.. and an unintended hole means wanting to cry.
6. Slipped stitches: This is can also be related to point 5, but sometimes it happens where a stitch fell off your needle without you even noticing even when you could swear your blood sweat and tears were all focused on the act of knitting. Anyway, learning to pick up slipped stitches so that its less of a big oh shit moment is a must.
7. Leaving a tail: For long-tail cast-on, for God's sake, leave a long tail. I mean, its not that bad having to start over since its at the cast-on, but it is annoying. Especially when you're casting on a ton of stitches.
8. Count stitches: Not sure if pros do this, but if the pattern calls for CO 140 stitches, after you cast on, count the damn stitches before you just jump into knitting. Because after the first row, and you realize something is not quite right because you only CO 139 stitches you're going to have to start over. I'm pretty paranoid and count twice because I really hate starting over.

I'm pretty sure I made way more mistakes than this, but this is all I can think of right now in the early early morning. Feel free to add to this list as I'm sure I will be doing as I continue to learn new things. Remember, mistakes are a good learning experience. Just make sure not to repeat them .. which should be point 9 for me as I am guilty of not learning from them the first time.

My Proud Collection

I decided to make a post show-casing my humble collection. I'm not sure if this knitting equipment is considered a lot, or embarrassingly inadequate, so if anybody knows, please tell me what I'm missing .. or if you're jealous of the amount I have haha. Anyway, starting off, this is where I keep my knitting stuff and yarn:

 

 

You'll see my knitting stuff is kept in a beautiful Lulu Lemon bag, but not as beautiful as the Staples bag my yarn is kept in. I know I've mentioned this before, but I'm definitely trying to find a way to organize this better, so it looks pro. And yeah, my yarn collection is so small! That bag needs to be filled up somehow.

 

Onto my proud collection:

 

Starting from above is the cute little pouch I got for Christmas last year that I keep the small stuff in, like my stitch markers, knit tally, needle tip protector, cable needle & yarn needle that you see underneath. Those were also given to me for Christmas by my lovely sister, along with the stitch holder and knit gauge you see at the very bottom. As for my needles, most of the gray were inherited from my aunt who used to knit but then later got bored of it (something I pray will never happen to me). Most of the colored ones I bought for myself. I try to buy unique looking needles like the really cool or elegant looking ones I see on Youtube, but too bad they are pretty expensive.

 

Starting from the left is the giant behemoth of knitting needles that I'm tempted to keep under my pillow to attack intruders. I'm not even sure what size it is (clue that it was a gift). It's too big for my knit gauge, but I'm guessing its approximately US 18? I haven't used it yet, and not sure what sort of pattern it can be used for. The blue is US 8 and the yellow is US 6. Beside it is needles that only say 4.0 mm, so I think that's around US 5.5. Next is needles that only say 3.25, which I think is around US 3. My two double pointed needles are US 10 and US 6. Finally, next to those, are my circular needles. You'll see the fat gray US 13, the blue US 10.5, the yellow US 8, and the skinny gray US 6 & US 3.

 

I always thought my collection was big, but I often wish for even more because on some of my projects I didn't have the right knitting needles and had to settle for the closest size one. But hey, I came a long way from back then with my first 4 projects where I only used my US 8 straight knitting needles and US 6 circular knitting needles even when I should have used a way different size because that was all I had. Anyway, I'll continue to post new knitting gear I get so you can watch my collection grow!  

Hello, Neighbour!

I finally finished my latest project! It's My Neighbour Totoro mittens! I'm really proud of it because I think it turned out quite well despite the cuffs still being a little too loose (although tighter than my previous gloves) and there are little mistakes here and there (that aren't immediately noticeable thank god). I think the worst mistake though is that the left thumb is too small! Well, not exactly too small... I modeled it after my hands, and apparently my thumb is smaller than normal people's because some friends tried wearing it and they can't properly wear the left hand glove because they can't stretch their thumb all the way. The right thumb is okay though since I tried fixing it after realizing my mistake with the left. At least the mittens fit me perfectly.

Anyway, with these gloves I learned:

• Color stranding! It was really fun to do... but what I did not like was this: 
  
  That is one of the mittens inside out before weaving together loose ends. I was never really good at nicely weaving the yarn at the end of projects, but usually I only have to do 2-5 at the end. But because of color stranding, I ended up with this many! It became the bane of my existence. I wonder if there's an easier way where you don't end up with so much. If anybody knows, please let me know! There were too many long stretches of one color that I didn't want to do one long floater. I ended up just tying a bunch of knots instead of weaving each one because I'm lazy, heh (I mean come on, you can't really notice from the front!)

• Making an obvious right hand and left hand glove 
• 3 needle bind-off
• Reading a picture instruction

To anybody who wants to see the pattern, here it is! I tweaked some of the pattern because I wanted to get rid of some leftover yarn, but then was scared I wouldn't have enough to complete the entire project. And also, off topic, go out and watch Studio Ghibli movies if you haven't already! They're like Japanese Disney, and highly recommended!

Making a List

I still consider myself fairly new to knitting. In my current project, I'm currently learning how to do stranded colorwork. But there's still so much more I want to learn.. So, I've made a small checklist of the things I want to learn.

1. Making socks: Just seems like a natural thing to eventually make
2. Cabling: I have cable needles and everything! I just need to find the perfect yarn and pattern..
3. Making a sweater: Can't wait until I even get to this level
4. Making a bag: So that I won't have to put all my knitting gear and yarn in those environmentally- friendly bags anymore.. I want to store them nicely, which brings me to my next point..
5. Learn how to organize my knitting stuff: It's so disorganized right now. If I'm looking for one needle, I have to rummage around in order to find the second one. I did tie up my dpn together and keep the small stuff (i.e. stitch markers, cable needles, weaving needles) in a little pouch, but otherwise, everything is all thrown into a giant environmentally friendly bag.
6. Knit a doll: Dolls aren't exactly useful, but I think it'd be a nice experience
7. Knit something that for once doesn't have any mistakes in it: Okay, so this isn't something you really learn, so much as it just comes with experience. But seriously, please knitting Gods, boost my ego just a little?

Alright, that's my nice list. But I need more yarn to realize these dreams!!!

Comparing Firsts

You know, I was looking on www.reddit.com/r/knitting and I noticed a ton of posts showcasing their 'First Project Ever', and wow, they look fantastic! I mean .. I look at my first several projects, and although they were/are impressive to me, I have to wonder why they don't look as pro as these other people's first projects look like. Maybe my learning curve is just really slow. Or maybe I'm not learning in all the right places. I know its a dumb thing to compare, but still .. I can only hope I can keep raising the bar for myself. 

My First Pair of Hobo Gloves

This was made last week, and its my first pair of gloves. I named them ... hobo gloves (because its fingerless and not very well made ... the fingers are really hard!) I don't know how easy it is to notice from these pictures, but each half-finger portion is varying sizes ... I learned off various Youtube videos again. The cuffs are also very loose. But.. it looks okay, and will keep your hands warm. For my first glove, I think it turned out great.

Things I learned:

• Using double-pointed needles
• Making fingers and the thumb gusset

This is it for the projects I made before making this blog! I'm excited about my latest project and will post it once I'm done!

To Keep You Warm

These were made very recently. You can't see it all all thanks to the type of yarn it is, but the cowl is made from cupido stitch. The ear-flap hat was made from various Youtube videos. My sister is going on a vacation to a place very cold, so I made these for her.

Things I learned:

• Cupido stitch (obviously)
• everything to do with making an ear-flap (also obviously...)
• How to attach pieces back onto the project (i.e. the ear-flaps)
• Making those nice tails at the end

My First Hat!

After making some scarves, I thought it was time to try something really new. So since my boyfriend was the one to receive my first scarf, I thought he should also receive my first hat! I made it in time for Christmas. I kept it simple, and I think it turned out really well! I didn't really follow a pattern, and was just learning off a bunch of Youtube videos.

Things I learned:

• Pretty much, the basics of making a hat (kind of a redundant point)
• Magic loop (seriously, Youtube tutorials are the best thing ever)

A Secret Santa Project

This scarf was made for my secret Santa at work. I only started working last September in 2013, and this was made in December. So needless to say, at the time, I didn't know my co-workers very well and had no idea what I should get. A brilliant idea came to mind, and I thought I should knit her a scarf (since a. I get to work on my hobby, and b. she'll have to pretend to like this scarf since its hand-made, sounded like a win-win to me).

I'm actually incredibly proud of this one. Things I learned:

• Long-tail cast-on
• YO: yarn over

It just looks so nice, and I think it was one of the first times where I began to think that my skills were improving.

Pattern can be found here: www.auntekristy.blogspot.ca/2013/08/free-pattern-gallatin-scarf.html

The Bandana Cowl

My first scarf where I learned how to read a pattern! So, I didn't understand knitting in the round. I was knitting it flat up until one part, where I realized something was wrong, searched the term up, and did my best to salvage the scarf so I didn't have to start over. I also didn't understand different knitting needle sizes and yarn weight, so... this scarf doesn't look as good as it should. I think it looks okay though. I mean, its wearable. It's a lot smaller than it should be, and also the bottom part curls up a bit, but other than that .. well like I said, it's okay.

Things I learned:

• Reading patterns
• Knitting in the round
• Short rows
• S2KPO: slipping 2 stitches together knitwise, then knitting 1 and passing the 2 stitches over that knit stitch
• Decrease by K2tog (knit 2 together) and SSK (slip slip knit)

Well, as you can see, even though the project didn't turn out ideal, I still learned a lot from it! This project was given to my aunt, who is nice enough to wear it in front of me (and claims she wears it to work). 

The link to the pattern can be found here: www.purlbee.com/the-purl-bee/2011/10/11/sweet-stitching-with-erin-bandana-cowl.html How it actually looks like is way better than what I created instead, so give it a try!

My First Circle Scarf

This was my first circle scarf! After my first scarf, I didn't knit again for practically a year. But then I had a friend who asked me to teach her how to knit, and to be honest, I completely forgot how. So, I scrambled on youtube, and found some videos that taught me how to knit again. And then I also came to find out, that knitting was more than just a knit stitch, and that's how I came to learn how to do the purl stitch.

Things I learned:

• How to connect a circle scarf from a flat piece
• How to purl
• How to rib

I gave this scarf to my sister (since she was the one who bought me the yarn). Even though this scarf is pretty ugly looking, I see her wearing it. It's also the project that sparked knitting into a real hobby for me. 

My First Project EVER

This was my very first knit project ever back in 2012! It's a scarf, and its all knit in the knit stitch. I learned the knit stitch from my cousin one day, and so I decided it'd be cute to knit my boyfriend a scarf.

Things I learned:

• To cast on
• To bind-off
• Knit stitch

To be honest, if you really see the scarf, you'll see I didn't really get the concept of knitting. I had a different number of stitches from when I started to when I ended. Quite sure I didn't know to pull the old stitch off the needle. A year later when I actually became into  knitting and making my first circle scarf, I was looking at Youtube videos and watching people knit in slow motion. That's when I really  realized what I'm doing when I'm going through the motions. For this scarf, I remember I started over approximately 4 times (even though a scarf made completely of knit stitch is the easiest thing you could do). The boyfriend likes it though, so I guess it turned out okay in the end!

Welcome to my Knitting Blog!

First post! This is just a blog to document my progress in knitting, which I started learning in 2012, but really picked it up and became a real hobby late last year in 2013. I'm still learning, so there are still lots of mistakes in my work! I'm still really proud of each finished project though, even if they didn't turn out exactly as expected. Anyway, to whoever reads this, hope you will enjoy my progress!