Now I could have learnt how to knit in primary school, but I didn't want to, because I preferred doing things with wood and glue and paint (not that I was any good at those things, either). I could have learnt how to knit like most little girls do, from their mother or grandmother, but as all of use have very little patience, don't want listen to anyone's advice, and I was not one to sit quietly for 2 days, stitches slipping away, hands cramping, without poking one of my needles into someone's eye, it made sense not to learn it that way.
But lo, I learnt it myself! Well, with the help from several instructive YouTube clips and knitting website, most of which were in Dutch, because the knitting jargon is confusing enough as it is, and I have heard of "recht" and "averecht" and "insteken, omslaan, doorhalen, af laten glijden" before, but not of "purling" or "the long cast-on". And it worked! Well, not immediately of course, and I dropped a lot of stitches, and there was some swearing and hissing, but I got there in the end. I still miraculously keep having more or fewer stitches than I start out with, and I have no idea where they are coming from, but I now feel experienced enough to deal with that in a calm manner instead of throwing everything across the room. I cannot read a knitting chart or anything, but I can follow the beginners instructions on the Innocent website, and thus create.... (drumroll)
The colours are much nicer if they're not killed by the flash of my phone-camera! |
Hats!
Now the first one was a disaster, because I had the wrong number of stitches to begin with, and then when it came to the decreasing of the stitches, I suddenly did the purling the wrong way around (don't ask how) and I ended up with the mess on top you see there. The second one went fine, but the thread kept unravelling as I was stitching it together, so I had to cut off pieces to thread it through the needle again, and I almost ended up with an open-bottomed hat (and we wouldn't want that!). The third one went eazy-breezy, no problems at all, and took me about half an hour! That must be some sort of record!
Next on the agenda, the intermediate hats! Stripes! New methods! More that can go wrong!
I'll keep you posted!
Chapeau:)
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