Knitting Mayhem

Now that the novelty (for me) has started to wear off, I thought I better blog about my poor knitting escapades. 

It all started with the Halloween costume.  I wanted a Hogwarts Ravenclaw scarf that looked knitted and really the only way to achieve that is by knitting. I did start off with a crocheted one but it didn't look right... cuz it was crocheted. I know, who knew? (Cho Chang from the movie)

I r engineer.

So I jumped in.  That engineering mentality, just go for it.  Besides, I had learned to knit on my mission so really it was more of a reminder of how to rather than starting from scratch.

Oh little did I know.  After practicing knitting and purling back and forth with big blocks of colors like the scarfs in the first Harry Potter movie, I found a pattern where I could just knit in a round.  This essentially made a long tube which was much easier and looked more authentic to me.  Most scarfs don't have a back and front. (I still don't understand how a knitted scarf could be done one side unless you like stocking knit on the back.  I understand how the cable or fancy stitch ones would look nice on both sides but not the just knitted ones.)

After hours and hours of knitting on my scarf, I noticed it was twisting to one side. Oh well, it will come out all right in the blocking.  I carried on, knitting every night, during lunch, any ward activity, and even during choir.

In my defense, crocheting will do this if you crochet in a spiral with every stitch just slightly behind the one below.  So normal, right?

Not so much.  I tried blocking it but it just wouldn't stay.  Finally I called my Mom and looked more closely at you tube knitting video's (you can learn to do ANYTHING on the Internet... and its free!).  Oops, I was taking the loop off wrong (knitting purlwise).  If you look closely, you can see how each loop is twisted.  When I was originally practicing purling and knitting back and forth the end results was straight because each row canceled out the previous one.

It also turns out that for some reason my knitting needles to gage size ratio doesn't match up to the norm (its pretty close for crocheting so I didn't think about it) ie, I ended up with only 11 stripes instead of the 13 shown in the movie screenshots... I threatened to pull it all out and redo it but knew I really wouldn't.

Instead, I started more scarves.  These ones were going to be RIGHT.  I had the fever.. the knitting fever.  Who cares that I live in Las Vegas and there really is no need for a double thick 9ft+ long scarf?  I'll give them to my friends/family who have to like/wear them cuz they love me.  Then they'll have a fever.

2.  Birgits Scarf (I wanted to do a Gryffindor one since I had bought the yarn and Birgit is VERY brave out there on the east coast with her husband in school and raising two boys)

3.  Melissa's Scarf (trying something new with color changes)

You can see Melissa's color changes in this picture as well as the fact that the stripes on Birgit's are more proportional to movie size.

4. Emily's scarf (trying something even more different with color changes)

Emily had mentioned she would like a blue one.  I was originally going to do a black line between big blocks of light and dark blue but after Bethanie suggested drawing it up (I used excel) to see if I liked it, I liked this pattern better (1 row black, 2 rows dark blue, 2 rows light blue).

Yes, its very long. (Emily, thanks for the pictures since I forgot to take some before I gave it 2 u!)

5.  I just finished the 5th scarf (Slytherin colors... I originally thought to make a Slytherin one but then didn't know who I'd give it to :-).

At the beginning I averaged about 10-12 rows an hr.  Now its a little more like 15-20 rows an hr depending on how wide I made it.  The scarfs are on average 500+ rows in length. 

I've never claimed to have a life.

Don't worry, my fever is winding down.  This last one I did a little block of design at the ends where you have to carry the other color with you (with stripes you can just bring it up each row). Its hard to keep the tension even so the beginning design is a bit tighter than the same design on the other end.  Again, I designed the pattern in excel... such a wonderful program.

In defence of knitting by hand, it's much easier to watch TV while knitting than with crocheting... at least I think it is.  The problem with knitting is the disparity of effort vs output.  In crocheting, a couple of rows moves you along quite far (lots of output per effort) while the same amount of rows in knitting doesn't get as far (lots of effort per output).  But you get the professional knitted look.  Then again, in knitting it is also easier to see mistakes but more effort to fix them.

There's your pros and con list if you ever decide to pick up either craft.  Your welcome.

Next project... hats.  But first, all the baby things I need to get ready for these babies coming in the spring.   In my world spring = babies for some reason.

Apparently my knitting fever isn't quite over yet though cuz its a struggle to get out the crochet hook instead of my needles.