My favorite method of casting on when starting a knitting project is what I thought was called the Long Tail method - muuuch simpler for me than other methods I’d seen, though I still haven’t managed to properly estimate the amount of yarn to start with (I invariably have to cast on two or three (or four) times before getting it right). David Demchuk at Knit Like a Man has a great YouTube tutorial for this method of casting on, and it looks like I’ve been doing it a little wrong (which explains a lot about why, in particular, that first loop on my needle looks all screwy!). Thanks, David, this is great!
For Christmas I received a book containing a really cute knitting project that is kinda beyond my current skill level - involving cables. Never fear - the knitting class at the local knitting/quilting/stamping shop to the rescue! I have never done cabling before, so in order to learn, I’m making a scarf using the same cable in the book pattern. Turns out it’s not nearly as complicated as I’d feared (at least this pattern isn’t), and I’m having fun truckin’ along. More pictures than necessary below (as I’m also fiddling with my camera):
I’m pretty sure I was shown how to knit when I was young, but it never really took. A few years ago I decided to give it another go (after a particularly bad day of too many stupid mistakes with my quilting project), and looked online for some tips and techniques. I found an old video of the continental method, gave it a shot and really took to it… however, I started a knitting class at a local shop in which the instructor was not particularly enamoured with that method, so I switched.
I’ve got a couple projects on the needles at the moment, one of which involves a fair bit of switching between knit and purl stitches - something I recall finding exceedingly easier using the continental method. As luck would have it, today on whipup.net I saw a link to a great YouTube tutorial (see below) on how to tackle this method. Yay! I’ll be switching back shortly, which will hopefully speed up these projects so I can move on to others.
