Baby Steps -- The Sweater Sampler

I'm taking myself back to knitting infancy and teaching myself Continental style from the basics. I decided a good way to practice a variety of stitches, without losing my mind with boredom and ending up with an odd-looking scarf thingy at the end, is to go step by step through The Sweater Workshop by Jacqueline Fee. This workshop book takes you through a variety of techniques in sweater-making, and has you produce an awkward-looking sampler at the end of it all.

I bought the one thing I never ever buy -- cheap acrylic yarn -- and set to work. Here's my starting -off point:

Thousands of painfully slow stitches later, I'm about halfway through the sampler:

I think I might actually stop at this point -- I'm pretty sick of it. But it got me into the swing of knitting Continental. In contrast to British, I actually prefer purling when I'm knitting Continental. You do a funky little dip with your index finger that makes it feel acrobatic and exotic.

Now I'm going to take my newly-gained confidence and make a sweet little infant-sized hoodie. A small enough project that I can finish it quickly and have the satisfaction of finishing my first Continental garment!

The Eternal Question -- To be a Thrower or a Picker

In the name of speed, I am trying to master Continental style of knitting. I've been knitting British for 23 years (since I was 12) and produce smooth, neat stitches and essentially flawless work.

But I yearn for speed!

The word on the street seems to be that Continental, once you've got the technique down pat, is the faster of the two. But do I want to return to those newbie days of knitting, with uneven tension and sloppy-looking work? Not really... unless it will be worth the learning curve in the long run.

Just watched a short YouTube video of Eunny Jang knitting -- her speed is mindblowing. Check this out:



This girl is amazing. She's now the Editor of Interweave Knits Magazine, with a blog on the Interweave website. But I prefer her on her old personal blog -- I can relate much better to her personality here

This video is a great example of how it's done, in a slowed down version of Eunny's warp speed, for us humans:

Great Increase for Sleeves

I never knew what was the best increase for sleeve shaping, so I've tried all kinds of different ones, but none were perfect. I've just discovered "Strand Increase", which makes an almost invisible increase which is ideal for sleeves, or any other place you don't want an obvious increase. Check out this link for an explanation with images: Strand Increase