Which Way to Knit

 I went to my knitting group today. I have to admit that the last half hour of knitting, I was getting very tired. I had been working on a right handed knitting project, when for no apparent reason I started knitting left handed. Then back to right handed. Then left.  Then right. Then left. Then something did not look right or was that left.  

I was knitting on 16 inch circular needles with double stranded yarn.  So I tinked a few stitches and thought I had corrected the problem. This happened 4 more times. Then I decided to tink back until everything looked right no matter how many rows had to go.  It turns out that it was exactly 3 rows.  

For those of you that do not knit, tinking which is knit spelled backwards with an “ing” for grammar.  It is not a very difficult task. However when you add one or more extra yarns it becomes a mini nightmare.  I had 180 stitches of nightmare.  

How am I going to solve this problem you might ask.  It is very simple. I have made markers to remind me whether a project is right handed or left-handed.  So I am going around the house to all my works in progress and mark them all. This way I will always stop at no more of one row of tinking. At the very worst I will have to stop assembling dog pillows to make more of these markers.  

Also I think I should stop knitting when I get tired. Just sit back and enjoy the talk.  No tinking involved.  

I would also love to hear how other people have solved this problem.  

Then it might just be nap time.  

Bingeing Again

 Well I am bingeing on hats again. It was over 107f today.  What else can I knit in the heat? I am knitting at least one hat a day. I also have 3 hats currently in progress. One in the knitting room. 2 in the den. All the hats are being knit on different sized knitting needles with different yarn weights.  Which begs the question, do I have enough 16 inch knitting needles in enough sizes? Double pointed knitting needles are not a problem, I have 2 boxes full of them.  The answer might just be no.  

Filing My Circular Knitting Neddles

This was the mess that had to be filed by size this morning.  Yes, this is the pile of knitting needles that I have used since Teri’s last visit.  I usually drop them in the front of the drawer or on top of the filing box.  I am usually so interested in starting the next knitting project that I don’t always fully put everything back in place.  The job took less than 20 minutes and will not have to be done any time soon.

All my current projects are in bags with patterns, knitting needles, yarn and the kitchen sink.  I wonder if John can 3D print small kitchen sinks?  Just a little more sorting and a few things left to put away.  Then it will be dust, polish and vacuum time.  Then my craft room will become our guest room.

Surprise!!!!

Today Eric has me up at 5:30am. What else was there to do but clean the craft room. So I finished winding so yarn and the went on to try to organize some craft bags. I put all the weaving projects together in on bag. Then it was time to organize the UFO’s of knitting projects. I found a lot of lace and sock weight yarn projects which were put in to a project bag together. I also found 2 more hats in progress, in separate knitting bags, which explains the shortage of 16 inch circular knitting needles earlier this year. The yarn has the equivalent of at least 5 more hats. So instead of sixty hats it looks like it’s going to be more like seventy hats or 6 dozen hats with the yarn currently in my hat knitting bags.

I really think that I need to trim that down to just one bag with hat knitting supplies instead of 3. In some cases I think 1 is better than 3. So the Zenning of the craft room continues.

Circular Knitting Needles

Today I started organizing my knitting needles starting with the circular needles. I had the knitting needles in 3 different areas. Hopefully having them in one spot will make things easier to find the right knitting needle when I need one for a project. They are also off my closet floor. The needles, are sorted from U.S. size 0 to size 50. They are also in a container that will not allow them to fall on the floor.  I really like the idea of my knitting needles not falling on the floor. Of course this does not include the knitting needles on projects. I must have a lot of projects on sizes, 6, 7, 8 and 11's.  Tomorrow I will work on the double point needles. I will save the straight knitting needles for Friday. As you can tell my deep cleaning has slowed down quite a bit, but I am down to the knitty gritty of the job so things are going much slower pace. 

I also managed to finish knitting 2 hats and casting another cotton hat on. I like to keep a cotton hat for knitting on the go and a wool hat to knit at home. I still need to cast on a wool hat. At a year post hand surgery I am still limited by my hands in how long I can knit each day, but at least I can knit again. 

Modular Knitting

Thursday I am going to teach modular knitting at The Old Publeo Knitters Knitting Guild Meeting.  I am currently working on the samples. I will teach 3 different ways to connect the knitted squares so you do not have to do any seaming.  I will also give a brief history of modular knitting.  

So if you are in Tucson on Thursday our meetings start at 9:30 am at St. Phillips Church at the corner of River And Campbell Avenues in the Murphy Hall.  The first 2 meetings are free.  All you need to bring are 2 skeins of Sugar and Cream, one ombré and one solid color skein, US side 7 or 8 by 24" circular knitting needles, a Crochet hook, and a pair of scissors.  Yes, I will weave the ends in as part of my demonstration. I will be teaching the 9 Patch Dish Rag.  Here is the sample that I started tonight.  This is about an hour of knitting so far.