General ramblings

Well, Christmas fast approaches, and I'm still frantically knitting. 4 pairs of fuzzy feet knitted, though the final 2 still need felting. 8 fair isle hats finished, 2 more done but needing the ends woven in, and one just on the needles as of 11pm.

I was once again the sole Stitch'n'Bitcher tonight at Sweetwaters ... but I did get a lot done - 2 1/2 hours on ..yep.. a hat. They're taking me about 3 hours to do, so I should be able to get 2 more finished before Christmas. And I think that'll be sufficient. (I really really hope so!)

Knitting the same pattern over and over has got me thinking about how I know I'm progressing as a knitter. A couple of things sprung to mind .. .speed being the obvious one. Since learning this two handed fair isle technique, I've been doing most of my knitting continental style (with the yarn in the left hand) which is definitely quicker, and less movement for my hands. The other is .. well, I'm not sure how to define it. But it's about being able to come up with creative solutions to knitting problems. The specific example is this: getting back to the fair isle hat knitting last week, I couldn't find my size 9 double pointed needles anywhere. And the pattern needs them as you decrease for the top of the hat - it gets too small to fit on the 16" circular needle. I didn't want to go out and buy another set (though I may end up doing that eventually) ... and rummaging through my shoebox of Addis, I found a 32" circular needle in the correct size.

So using what I'd learned doing the two socks on two circulars, I simply knitted half of the hat stitches onto the longer circular, and managed to knit the remaining half with the original 16". Then I simply kept knitting from one end of each circular to the other ... and managed to decrease the hat with no problems. And possibly slightly faster than if I were switching double points all the time.

I felt fairly proud of myself for figuring that out - applying a technique, problem solving, and getting the darn hat finished! And now I've boasted, it's back to hat number 13...