Friday, January 25, 2008

This time, with feeling

Okay, Wings of a Dream is turning into Wings of a Nightmare, through no fault of the pattern or the yarn. The yarn can't help being what it is, superfine laceweight, I have to learn how to knit with it. The pattern is fine, I've already successfully knitted it's parent pattern, Swan Lake. So what is it? It's the picker, not the banjo. Yep folks, I've narrowed the defective item down to moi.

This third (or will it be the fourth?) time will be the charm, I just know it. I have tried something different this go around: bamboo straights instead of circs. Maybe this will be the talisman to success. Maybe I'll get beyond row 9. May the Force be with me.

On another note, I saw on Ravelry yesterday the method Yarn Harlot uses to knit is called Irish Cottage Knitting. I downloaded the video of her knitting and wow -- she really is like lightening. She and I differ in that I learned to knit at my host mother's knee in Hamburg, Germany, and hold the yarn Continental style, while YH holds it English. But other than that, and the fact that she's amazing and I'm not, I'd never noticed that I hold my needles like she does: at almost right angles to each other. When it comes to the knit stitch, I'm pretty darned fast. I feed my lefthand stitches towards the right while scooping up the yarn through the stitch without stopping. My purl isn't anywhere as fast as hers, but, meh. All in all, it was fascinating getting to see her in action, albeit electronically. One day, I'll get to go to a book tour of hers. That would be grand!

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