The Novice Knitter’s Knotty Predicament

Cafe Society
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Since deciding to teach myself to knit a month or so ago, I have knitted one slightly miss-shapen hat, and half of a scarf. The second half of the scarf has been started, but is suffering from second sock syndrome, made worse by the fact that each half of the scarf is 320 rows long, 15 stitches wide, 90% pink, but with a purple knit stitch and a turquoise knit stitch every other row. As a result, while I don’t know what my next project will be, I have resolved that it will involve only one ball of yarn at a time.

And then this past weekend, I went hiking in the woods in snowy weather, and fell repeatedly on ice, hurting myself. I don’t think it’s serious, but knitting twists my wrist in a way I’d rather not twist it until I have a chance to heal a little more. And so, rather than work on the scarf, I’ve been thinking about what to knit next.

The Predicament

There are three of types of projects out there to be knit. The boring, the difficult and the ugly. If you are a knitter, maybe you’ve been there. What did you do that helped you to develop better knitting skills and better pattern reading skills? Or do you still find yourself dividing potential projects into boring, difficult and ugly? Just maybe with a slightly larger range of skills than I’ve got so far? Or maybe not, other newbie knitters are also welcome to come whine or boast in this thread. Sympathy, encouragement, or commiseration all welcome. Please, feel free to tell me about that project you started a long time ago which is presently gathering dust at the back of your closet, because you just couldn’t stand it any more.

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And now for the rest of the story:

I’ve thought about trying to knit a pair of socks. And I have found a sock pattern which almost suits my skills—it’s for a pair of magic spiral tube socks, so I’d only need to buy appropriate yarn and a set of 4 double pointed needles—and figure out how to use them.

I’ve also found a sock pattern which does not require knitting with more than two sticks, but the tube sock pattern makes more sense to me.pattern

I’ve thought about trying to knit a sweater. Even found a sweater pattern which does not require skills other than casting on, binding off, knitting and purling. And only has 3 pieces, and few seams. But, figuring out how much yarn to buy for it is a process of buy a skein of yarn, knit a gauge swatch, measure gauge, calculate how much yarn the sweater requires, buy yarn. Knit forever. Besides, how in the world do I decide what yarn I want to be knitting in forever, when there are 4.2 million varieties of yarn?

Ok, one of these knitting books I’ve looked at suggests making one’s first sweater suitable for a child–on the grounds that this makes the project smaller and thus more managable. Ok, I’ll knit for my niece. Umm, I think I’d rather do a cardigan than a pullover style, and I’m not sure I want stripes, and why are all the children’s sweater patterns aimed at babies and toddlers? (Seriously, if you have any suggestions for a cardigan sweater pattern which is at least in the neighborhood of easy intended for a girl between the ages of 3 and 6 wearing something between a size 4 and a size 8, I’d love to see it .) Aha! A cute pattern, perfectly suitable for my niece, intermediate rather than easy, but what the heck, I’ll buy it and the yarn and the needles. (3 hours later) Silly me, I should have known that making that lace edging would require being able to translate cryptic symbol on chart into “Nub: K into (front, back, front) of next st, turn:P3, turn; slip 2 sts at once knitwise, K1, p2sso” and then translate it into English, and then knit it.

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If you’re looking for patterns that aren’t boring, but also aren’t that hard, you might try things that are textured, but not cabled or lace. Slipped stitch patterns can be interesting to knit, and are something you have to keep track of, so they’ll help develop your pattern following skills, but they’re not as big a pain in the ass as cables or lace.

In your pattern above, you’re creating a small bobble from the looks of it. Out of one stitch, you’re creating three by knitting into the front, back, and then front again of that stitch. Then you turn the work around, as if you were at the end of the row, and purl the three stitches you just created. Then you turn your work back again. Then you decrease the three stitches you created back down to 1 by moving two stitches over to your right needle without knitting them, knitting one stitch, and then lifting the two unknit stitches over it, as you would if you were casting off.

Re: the figuring out how much yarn to buy thing, if you’re in a nice yarn store, ask. The people will tell you how much yarn to buy if you’re substituting for what the pattern itself calls for. If you’re buying cheap yarn in a department store, I’d encourage you to reconsider. It’s not worth it to spend 100 or more hours knitting something and have, at the end, something you won’t wear because it looks cheap.

Otherwise, I sub for pattern yarns by finding one that calls for the same number of stitches per inch as the pattern, and then getting enough yardage (rather than enough weight, which is a useless measure, frankly) to match up with what the original pattern called for (you may need to research the original yarn to find out that number) plus 10% for safety.

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What did I do to develop my skills? Well, mainly I just keep trying different stuff. Knitty has loads of different patterns for free for various skill levels.

Basically what I did (and still do) is pick something that uses mostly what I already know and tosses in something new at the same time. So, for example, my first attempt at socks are basic ones… ribbing for the leg, straight knitting for the rest. Next pair of socks have some texture to them, and a short row heel instead of a flap.

Sweaters can get somewhat boring, especially with loads of stockinette (I have a Cardigan for Arwen hoodie for myself that’s been on the needles since mid last year and I only finished the back and a couple inches of the front left… I’m thinking of pushing onwards though and just see if I can make it and do the changes I need to for my long arms and torso). My first sweater was one for my son though, stockinette mostly with a little shaping and some seaming, and adding pockets. It also has a hood. (He loves it, I need to make him another).

The pattern I used was a pretty simple one and could be done up in girly colours, this one is the one I did, on straight needles. Or if you want to try circulars and dpns you can try this patterm which is the one I am considering doing as the next sweater for my son (only in boyish colours obviously).

Mainly, just play around. Mistakes are part of the learning process, and you can always frog it and work it into something else. Pick yarn that feels soft but isn’t really delicate or needs a lot of special care. Superwash is good for kids, and there is some you can find for not too much.

Have fun. :slight_smile:

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I am an avid knitter of about 4 years and I have many unfinished projects, as, it would seem, most knitters do. I don’t knit socks or mittens because of that second item syndrome. I hate to sew things together. I don’t read charts. So, I choose seamless or mostly seamless patterns and have completed very few sweaters. I used to have lots of other things I didn’t or couldn’t do, but over time my skills have developed.

When it comes to substituting yarn, I don’t know if this is right, but I find a yarn that has a very similar gauge to the suggested yarn, I calculate the yardage of the quantity of the suggested yarn (6 balls of Yummy Yarn, 110 yards per ball = 660) and buy 660 yards of yarn, whether that’s one cone or 13 little balls.

Personally, I think a wonderful 1st major project (or millionth) is (no, fellow knitters, it’s not the Einstein coat again!) the Barbara Walker Learn-To-Knit afghan. It’s a blanket with 63 different squares - no repeats at all. Some are as simple as can be - striped garter stitch, for example. Some are more complicated and you will learn more techniques such as cables, lace, twisted stitches, knitting round with increases and with decreases and my new favorite - mosaic. The only things missing are intarsia and fair isle. There are reference sections if you are unsure of how to do a certain techniques. You will also learn more about the concept of gauge. And, dude, it’s 63 different small projects. For me, it’s a new project every day and a half. For someone who is more of a beginner or who doesn’t knit during all her free time, it will take longer to finish a square. And, it’s Barbara Walker, she of the famous Treasuries of Knit patterns - one of our heroines!

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I tend to underestimate my ability (knitting for about 10 years) and I will shy away from projects. I have to push myself to try something new. And I don’t have unfinished projects…I don’t start something new until I’ve finished what I’ve done.

Keep in mind, knitting is really two stitches, knitting and purling. The rest is fancy variations.

I think my least favorite stitch is seed stitch. Knit purl knit purl knit purl…all across the row. Booooorrrring!

I don’t do ugly. I like difficult for a challenge, but it’s also nice to have a boring stitch that you don’t have to think about much.

But it’s so nice to know you’ve conquered a complicated pattern. Don’t be afraid to try new things!

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I tend to build my skills by picking projects that I want to do and then learning the skills that I need to complete them. I’ve found that most techniques aren’t nearly as hard as they seem. My first chart-reading project was this blanket that I decided I wanted to make for my son. It took me awhile, but it turned out great. I find I learn new stuff better by actually doing it and learning as I go and also by being very motivated to learn by an end-product that I think is really cool.

Flutterby, have you seen this version of the Cardigan for Arwen?

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I have a tendency to eschew the “starter” things (boring and ugly) and drive myself crazy by starting off with something totally inappropriate for a beginner (difficult). I’m a glutton for punishment. My first knitting project was a feather and fan baby bonet that gathered into a leaf pattern at the back of the head. It was darling. I started it five thousand times (including, I think, sixteen times casting on) before I really got going on it. I eventually finished it.

After the baby bonet, I started a scarf. It was boring. I never did finish it. Then I knit an entire sweater. It was heavily cabled and knit from Lion Homespun. It was like wearing a stuffed animal. I gave it away and set to work on a garter stitch toddler cardigan from a Debbie Bliss book. Eureeka! I learned how to shape pieces and pick up for edging. It was way huge for the kid, but she grew into it. I think I stuck to kid-sized clothes for a while, then I knit my first pair of socks.
I like socks - they’re portable, interesting, and are only as difficult as you want them to be. Double pointed needles aren’t hard to learn to use once you get used to snugging up the yarn between needles so you don’t get a ladder.

I’ve learned that I hate “easy” knitting. If there’s no challenge, I won’t knit it. I deal well with frustration. My favorite projects are ones were I adore the pattern (Alice Starmore’s Cromarty is one of my UFOs right now) or I love the yarn and can’t wait to bury my hands in it (the socks I’m working on in JoJoLand Melody fall under this one).

I suggest for your next project that you find a pattern that really speaks to you, nevermind the difficulty. If you haven’t already, join Ravelry and gawk at all the finished projects until you see something you’ve just *got * to knit. Really loving the finished product will keep you going through all the difficult parts. If you can purl, knit, increase, and decrease, you can do just about anything. You can always frog and reknit if something gets screwy. Then when you’re done, you’ll have a great finished object and more skills. (and possibly a few grey hairs) Life is too short to waste time knitting something you don’t love.

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I have! It’s so cute, but that didn’t come out until my son was well out of that size! I just want to finish something for myself first, a sweater (I have enough yarn for a few different sweaters and have yet to finish one for myself) or a stole/shawl (I have a stole on the needles, which is coming along nicely so maybe once I’m done that I’ll go back to a sweater).

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In addition to the Barbara Walker afghan I am doing the Mr. Greenjeans cardigan from Knitty.com. It’s a top down, seamless cardigan with very easy cables.

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I’ve been knitting for years, but if you want something easy, try cotton dishclothes.
Try this link: http://store.knitting-warehouse.com/yarn-bernat-sugar-n-cream-cotton-ombre-yarn.html
It has patterns for dish cloths right on it, they’re small and go pretty quick, I can do one in about 4 hours.

Another good thing when you’re doing just the garter stitch (all knit) or stockinette stitch (knit one row, purl one row), the kind of things that get boring is to use variegated color yarn, the different colors make it more interesting.
Right now I’m making a scarf for a friend and I hope I finish it before winter is over. It’s in the battersea pattern, which is: cast on a multiple of 4 plus 1. All rows: knit 3, purl 1 and end the row with a knit stitch. Or in pattern speak: k3, p1 k1. I think it’s also called a broken rib stitch. I’m at work and can’t look it up.
Anything you make with small needles takes a long time, so if you want something to go quick, try chunky or bulky yarn on larger needles.
If you want to try out different patterns, make squares about 7" x 7" or larger, then whipstitch or crochet them together to make a lap throw.
I’ve had projects sit around for years before I finished them. I hope you stick with knitting, it can be very rewarding. My proudest moment was making an Aran sweater for my son.

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That is one way of looking at it… and 90% of the time, I’m going for the difficult. (Of course, now, I would more likely say “challenging” than “difficult” because I’m not really worried about not being able to do anything when the instructions are even in the general neighborhood of being correct.) That’s how I developed my skills, I saw items that I wanted to knit, got the yarn, got the instructions (or figured out the instructions), and knit them.

As said above, there are really only two things you do - knit or purl - and knitting and purling are really the same thing, just backwards. So if you can knit & purl, you know 98% of knitting.

Given what you’re looking at as your current choices (socks, child’s sweater, Sonnet sweater), I’d go with the socks - being able to knit a tube is a valuable skill, and once you know you can do it, it’ll make a lot more items feel achievably difficult. After that, I might do the Sonnet is a good idea.*

(BTW, swatching is a good idea. I hate it. And I usually try to find ways to get around it, but my first sweater would be a slightly loose fit for some of the taller members of the NBA. I still wear it - but if I’d understood swatching, I’d be able to wear it in public.) But as far as yarn - look for a chart likethis or another on line. Those are good guides for how much to buy so that you don’t have to head back to the yarn shop after swatching.

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Amy’s patterns are great, that’s one I want to do (at some point… ). Probably helps that if I run into any issues I can just haunt her store and ask for help (I haunt it a lot anyway… lol). The second sweater I linked to is her store btw.

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I get that if I do it right I get a bobble, but I don’t get how one knits into a stitch more than once. I’ve not spent a lot of time trying, yet.

And yes, at the moment, I’m inclined to buy cheap yarn at the chain craft store, but there is at least one yarn store nearby, and probably more if I bothered to look.

Flutterby,
Either of your cardigans look good to me-- simple and plain, but that’s ok. In fact, that’s probably good. (Except for the part of me that really wants to figure out how to do this pattern I’ve picked up.

Caricci,
I’ve thought about doing something like that afghan. But, when I was done, what would I have? Afghan number one hundred and sixty three. And I couldn’t give it away, because all my relatives have even more afghans than I have. (And I’m not ready to make an afghan to donate to charity at this time. Good idea, bad timing).

Really, it’s the same reason I don’t want to make a(nother) scarf when I finish this one, only larger.

Ivylass,

Hmm, maybe that’s why I hate this scarf–it is 90% seed stitch. And every time I make a mistake and take stitches out, I get started going the wrong way, so I have to take more stitches out. (I’ve figured out why I kept doing that, but have a strong suspicion it’s not the end of me making the mistake).

And I do understand about the not being afraid to try something new, it’s just that balancing act between so easy it’s boring and so hard it intimidates me which I’m struggling to find at the moment.

And I really think I ought to finish the scarf before I put anything else on needles, or the scarf never will get done.

Other Persons,

Thank you for the encouragement, the other perspectives, and the assurance that I’m hardly the only person who, having mastered knitting and purling, is tempted to jump in over her head, rather than carefully knit a sequence of items in increasing order of difficulty.

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Insert the right needle into the stitch on the left needle, wrap the yarn around, and pull the loop through just as you would make a regular knit stitch. Here’s the different part Do not slip the old stitch off the left needle like you would normally do. Instead, insert the right needle into the back of that same left needle stitch (which is easier to visualize if you have ever knit through the back of a stitch instead of the front), wrap the yarn around and pull through the loop. Again, do not pull that old left hand stitch off its needle. For the third and final time, stick your right needle in (through the front this time - like a normal stitch), wrap the yarn around and pull through the loop. NOW you can slip the old left side stitch off the needle.

A very common decrease is to knit into the front and back of a stitch. This is like that decrease, only instead of making two stitches in one loop (therefore one new one), you’re making three. This probably still doesn’t make sense, but if you play around with it, you’ll get it. Eventually.

If you shop around and aren’t wool averse, you can find decent 100% basic wool at some craft stores, or you can find yarn in a dedicated yarn store that isn’t $15/ball. I learned on acrylic and my hands didn’t fall off.

Figuring out the fastest and/or easiest way to fix mistakes is one of the most valuable knitting skills there is. No matter how many skills you pick up, you’ll still make mistakes from time to time. When I learned how to pick up dropped stitches instead of ripping back row upon agonizing row, I think that’s when I really started to enjoy knitting. (prior to that I think I spent a year cursing my knitting while mumbling, “I do this for relaxation?!”)

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It’s hard to describe, but KnitPicks.com now has podcasts. See if they have any on bobbles. I’ve also gone to a Saturday class at Michael’s…it’s so much easier to see what to do when you have someone show you.

Basically, you knit, but don’t pull the stitch off the needle. Then you pull the yarn in front, purl, but again, don’t pull the stitch off the needle. Finally pull the yarn in back, knit, then pull the stitch off the needle. You’ve basically knit three stitches in one.

Learn two words: tink (knit backwards, when you have to undo only a few stitches) and frogging (when you “rip it” out by rows.)

We’ve all done it, and we will all have to do it again. The thing is, most times, unless it’s a structural thing like a dropped stitch…you’re the only one who will know it’s wrong. If you can live with it, learn to let it go.

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I learned to knit by using http://www.knittinghelp.com/

They have tons of (free) short videos that demonstrate various techniques. Here’s a glossary of knitting terms with links to videos for each type of stitch (scroll down to k1f&b to see how to knit into the front and back of a stitch).

And this page has a video on creating basic bobbles (scroll down about halfway).

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I think my biggest problem with the knitting through the back of the loop thing is figuring out what the back of the loop is(vs. the front of the loop). But I’m looking at some directions at knitpicks, and I may have the idea, now. I’ll probably forget by the time it’s convenient to pick up needles again (3 hours from now, or more).

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I don’t really think that much about what to do with the end product when it comes to knitting. For me, it’s the love of the process. So I’ll have another afghan… well, it’s not like any other one I have, right? And now I know how to do lace better than I did before.

What I’d love to do is knit art like those people in that KnitKnit book the young people like so much. I saw its editor speak here at work and found her very inspiring. My former workstudy student is friends with Dave Cole, the guy from Brown who knit a huge American flag using construction equipment and telephone poles. That’s awesome and I wish I had gone to MassMOCA to see it with her. He did something similar right down the street from this office a few years before and somehow I missed it. What’s up with that? I have a book in the office that has a lace shawl that someone knit is a portrayal of her mother’s Alzheimers disease - all perfect on one end and abruptly unravelling at the other. Knitting isn’t just socks and mittens and sweaters to me. One day I found myself bored and with some found yarn but no needles and tried to knit with pens. I got nothing out of it, but now I know knitting with pens doesn’t work all that well.

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The back of the loop is the part behind the needle.

And ivylass, that tinking is the best thing I ever finally figured out. It took me quite some time to get it.