I’ve written a number of times about knitting (see when I knitted a hat, knitting handwarmers, all the way back to starting to knit my 9 1/2″ scarf).
The Salisbury A/W 2016 Collection…
Since then, I’ve been trying to pick up new skills & improving my technique. The two most recent pieces are my 2nd hat and a pair of handwarmers (in a lovely worsted yarn called “Purple Mystery” by Malabrigo).
The hat didn’t teach me anything particularly new, beyond the importance of reading the stitch counting guidance on the yarn’s label (the other attempt to make this hat ended up with something which was about 2x too big to fit my head). The handwarmers on the other hand (so to speak) was the first time I’d ever attempted to make a thumb gusset (which I’d built up in my head to be a massively complicated thing – which it isn’t, as it turns out).
Going from the first effort, the lack of a gusset added a whole bunch of stress to the hole, meaning it didn’t really do the job properly. Adding the gusset means there’s room for the thumb joint, which keeps things a lot tidier. I then picked up some more stitches, which means I was able to keep working up the thumb.
This time, I’d actually written down the pattern I’d used to make the first one, which meant repeating it in order to complete the pair was much easier.
My take-away from working on these was to not over think any of the techniques. Fear of making mistakes with it will hold you back from producing something you’ll enjoy.
Now to look for the next thing…
B
Didn’t you realise your mistake when you began to run out of wool… at your local wool shop.
Many sheep were sheared to bring me this yarn… I did end up using close to 200M of yarn. We’ve now adopted it as the “Threat Hat” when boardgaming.