Hey! My grammy is the knittin’ kween. (She taught me how to do the basic knitting thing, I can knit very long strips of boring looking wool now. I don’t have the patience to learn another stitch type.) She’s a sweetie!
sits in the corner and looks grumpy at seawitch
a lefty, eh??? [sub]so am I[/sub]
I do not knit. [sub]I think there may be a law preventing men from knitting, however, I do sew, which my wife cannot[/sub]
However, I think my grandmother does, and my mom did… and my mom is a lefty who learned from her mom who is not a lefty… I will inquire if there are any tricks or pointers either of them may have.
Lefty here, too.
My grandmother’s cousin tried to teach me to knit, but kept smacking my hands because I was trying to do it the lefthanded way.
I have no desire to knit, but would like to learn to crochet.
Sheri
[asskissing]Venoma! Sweetie! I obviously didn’t mean you OR your wonderful grammy! How can I make it up to you? Have I told you lately that I love you?[/asskissing]
Perhaps my outlook is tainted by my AntiGrammy (just like the AntiChrist, but older and with blue hair.)
tell you what…you me and Mags can get together and I can get you going. I can even teach you to pearl. However, once you’ve got that first scarf done, you’re on your own.
I never learned anything else.
:rolleyes: Sorry, sorry, I’m just in a whiney mood.
Besides, I had this great mental picture of my sweet rosy cheeked gramma coming in from the garden and turning into the One-armed Psycho Gramma From Hades™ sitting down to knit swastikas on squares into an afghan. YIKE.
I also have an AntiGrammy! She neither knits nor makes cookies. She is, however, just as lovely as you descibed your Grammy. Actually she was all that lovely. Now she has Alzheimer’s which is the best thing that ever happened to her as she has forgotten what a bitter old bitch she was.**
As to the OP: What a stinky old bitch! Great rant. I hope you knit a 40 foot long Dr. Who scrarf and wrap her up like King Tut.
**[sub] That is not to say I wish Alzheimer’s on anyone (my nice Grammy had it too and it was very sad). It’s just that she was terminally mean and Alzheimer’s has significantly improved her disposition.[/sub]
I used to knit moderately well–and I’m left handed. Jarbaby, it sounds like your problem is that you’re pulling the yarn too tight when you make your first row of stitches. That’s a really typical beginner’s mistake. (I remember knitting rows of stitches so tight the knitting felt like chain mail.) You should be able to slip the needle in easily as you start the second row.
My problem was that I never had the patience to do all the stitch counting you need to do for the fancy stuff.
Another great site is http://www.about.com. It’s got free projects and I believe it has tutorials and links galore. This is the main page and has a lot of everything, including jewelry sites Note to Scarlett67.
The direct link to the knitting site is: http://knitting.about.com/mbody.htm.
Good luck and enjoy!
What a witch! I’m surprised, because yarn store ladies are usually unbelievably nice.
I do everything right-handed - except knitting. I learned from my left-handed grandmother, but many right-handed knitters switch over to left-handed because it’s more efficient. Unfortunately, I’m about a thousand miles away from you, so I can’t just show you how to do it. IIRC, Knitting Without Tears has a good section on how to knit left-handed, in addition to being a generally kick-ass book.
It does sound like you’re knitting too tight. You may be able to save it by moving the stitches onto a smaller needle, and knitting them back onto the big one. (You’ll still have a tight row, but most beginners are really reluctant to rip out a row, which is what an experienced knitter would do in this situation). To move the stitches, slide them one by one off the big needle onto the small one. Then slide them off the small one and onto the other small one, so you can get access to the free tail of yarn again.
When you get to the end of a row, you will have a needle full of stitches in your right hand, with the yarn trailing away from you. Turn the needle clockwise (as seen looking down from the top), so the point stays in the same place and the yarn still trails away from you. Hold it in your left hand, and hold the other in your right. Now you can start all over again.
Incidentally, a trick I learned from the book above is never to bother with straight knitting needles. You can knit back and forth on a round needle just as well, and you never lose a needle on the subway that way.
Well, here’s just a thought - I’m ambidextrous, and can actually knit both ways (Left & Right handed) - why don’t you just try the deal right handed? It doesn’t make that much difference. (Well, at least not to me.)
You could try it anyhow - it is easier I think, and there’s no rule that says you HAVE to favor one hand over the other. (Not for knitting, I mean).
al.
jarbaby, I learned to knit a few years ago. I’m self taught, and started on scarves, too. I’m left handed as well, and no, it didn’t help. Luckily (for me, I mean), I’m ambi-sinister, so I managed to knit right handed, after giving up trying to switch the directions around.
Here’s what I can tell you. The first, say, 30 rows of knitting I did were painful. I can’t tell you how long it took me to get the first row then. But, once I had done it a few times, something clicked, and it became really easy.
I remember being confused by the same instructions that are causing you grief. It think you may be holding the yarn backwards (yeah, I know, that’s a big help, isn’t it?). Do you have to fight with it to get a stitch done? I mean, does it take, like, 30 seconds to add a stitch, or do they flow along naturally?
I’m going to teach my wife to knit, anyway, so I’ll give it a try tonight and see if I can remember what I did wrong. I’ll also see if the books think I knit left handed or right handed-that will tell me if I should be giving out knitting advice (with any luck, I knit left handed, and can make one of the right-handed oppressors suffer for a change).
But, even if it turns out that I can’t help, take heart. It seems to just come to people, after they’ve played with it for a while.
Yoinks, jarbabyj! That old battleaxe needs those needles stuck someplace where they most definitely weren’t designed to go.
Although her delivery totally sucked, she made one kind of good point–don’t blow your training budget on expensive yarn. Stick with the less expensive stuff until you’re comfortable with what you’re doing.
And don’t give up! I don’t knit, but I did teach myself crochet and plastic canvas just last year. It’s hella-fun! But now I’m a yarn junkie. :eek:
(jaw dropping)
[brief hijack]
So that’s what this site is for! I never knew how fabulous a truly royal ass-reaming could be. You should teach drill sergeants, Jarbabyj.
And, homage to Seawitch and Venoma for the Antigrammy/One-armed Psycho Gramma From Hades lines! Bravo!
[/brief hijack]
My grandmother taught me to knit when I was a little girl, and though I’ve barely ever done it, I still remember how. Crocheting, on the other hand, confuses the hell out of me. I know how to make a long chain of thread, but have no clue as to how you go about doing anything else.
I learned to knit from a book–Knitting in Plain English by Maggie Righetti. Great book. I am know a very happy knitter. I knit a lot.
Great rant, BTW.
I don’t know a damn thing about knitting but I wanted to say that was one of the funniest rants I’ve ever read.
If I ever have something to bitch about, I’m going to e-mail the details to jarbabyj and beg her to write it for me.
heh heh… alice said she goes both ways… heh heh…
Sounds like the Chicago Doper’s Knitters Auxiliary needs to get together and make some stuff. I’d help, but all I know how to knit is steel.
Day fucking three and I still can’t figure it out. I think I’ve got it all under control, then I head to the second row and it just becomes a big ball of shit.
I’m pulling the stitch through the loop on the stick and it gets the skein yarn all tangled up in the stitch, the tail gets all tangled, the stitches get tighter and tighter.
I’m always going through the loops on the stick, right?
fuckin’ thing
j
I can’t believe I just enjoyed a rant about knitting (well - more than just about knitting, but still). However, I think the owner of this “PC room” in Korea might be more than a little pissed at you, jarbabyj. Well, actually, he’s probably pissed at me, but little does he know that you’re the real culprit. This line:
…actually made me spit some coffee all over the keyboard, forcing me to apologize profusely to an angry PC room owner, and to switch over to a different computer. Maybe I should avoid this PC room altogether now. Damn, that was a good line. Thank you (and damn you).