Uncharted territory
I still consider myself a completely ignorant new knitter. And so, it’s at times like this that I bang my head on the table and wonder what I was thinking when I chose to do Trellis. La suggested it, and I thought it was cute, and since it’s a baby sweater, it’s a small item, so it won’t take forever. Oh, man. Do you even know how many times I’ve started this thing? More than I’d care to admit, I’ll tell you that.
I’ve never worked with charts before, so I spent a lot of time messing up the pattern and either going back, or starting over altogether. And I don’t mind having to do it again, because I do enjoy the act of knitting just for the sake of knitting, not just for the sake of completing something. And I want to learn from my stupid mistakes and not keep making them. But I think I’m reaching the point of Project Abandonment here. Not yet, but I’m close.
I found myself getting the two different cable patterns mixed up, so I got an idea at work today and figured out a way that might make it easier on me.
So I started going, and noticed the difference it made, and how easy it was, and I felt so clever.
Then I realized something. On the key, it says black squares are purls on the right side, knit on the wrong side.
Um.
That whole right side/wrong side switch eluded me, and I was purling ALL the black squares and knitting ALL the white squares. As soon as I realized what I was doing, I just stopped. I resisted my urge to rip it all out and do something else, and put it back in the plastic bag and went back to my desk (I knit on my lunch break).
Like I said in my last post, directions sometimes confuse me (I never admitted to being the sharpest knife in the drawer). And having to worry about if I’m on a RS or WS row, and if the black square means knit or purl. And while I admit to still being new to the world of knitting, I’m sure there’s a reason that the key switches each row, and why they couldn’t make the knit/purl key consistent throughout the WHOLE pattern. I definitely need to start sucking up to the real-life knitters I know so I can beg them for help more often.
This might take a while.
June 12th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Fret not, Grasshoppah. It took me years to brave anything charted.
June 12th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Don’t worry. I have the beginnings of a blankie somewhere because I keep messing up (not counting correctly - to 8, dropping crazy stitches instead of normal, everday, fixable ones…).
My advice is this:
Redraw your chart. Where you really purl, use an empty box or a dash. Where you really knit, use a black square. Fill in all that cable stuff. Highlight and color code your cables again. Since you know you can do the color-coded cables, all you need to do is make it easier to see where you knit right side, and where you purl wrong side (and vice versa).
And kudos to you for braving cables, because although I’m screwing up my first sock, cables are still on the “hey, I’ve got time before I’m 60″ list*.
(* - yes, I have a list. Knitting, crochet doilies, tatting, embroidery, sewing. My grandmother used to do them all, and more, and they’re on my list of things to do before I reach 60, simply because she did them. I have 35 years to go.)
June 12th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Oh holy shit, you’re a braver knitter than I. I need to pump out some more baby hats then I’m going to try my hands at a pair of socks. Seriously, I mean it this time.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Uh…if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger? Does that work? Uh, no? Well, I’m a slacker, so I’d recommend a simple stockinette cardigan to get up to speed.
Yarn Harlot to the rescue: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEsummer03/PATTdaisy.html
June 12th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Don’t listen to La. The one pattern she got me to knit has a chart (my first) and has been kicking my ass too, despite the fact that everyone else on the planet can knit it in her sleep. Sigh.
was an emoticon and skipped it.
BTW, the yarn harlot tells a story about how her daughter f’ed up a pattern because the instructions said, “Row 2:P” and she thought the
June 12th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
That dumb smiley was supposed to be a “: P”
Urgh.
June 12th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Carrie, you wuss! You need another cheeseball.
Andria, I know it’s a little hard, but I know you can do it. You’re a talented knitter whether you know it or not. I wouldn’t have recommended it if I didn’t think you could do it.
Yeah…that’s it
June 12th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Um, I think we can ALL use another cheeseball.
Carrie, I know what you mean about the people that knit in their sleep. I want to throw my monitor across the room when I see a blog that says, “Here’s my second FO. I knitted a lace car cover for a tank. It was so easy and knitted up quick!” Ok, I might be exaggertating a little. JUST a little.
Where’s the cheese?
June 13th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Holy crap! That sweater looks hard! And it’s charted?! Eek! My first chart was the Alien Illusion scarf from the Stitch ‘n Bitch book and there are a couple of alien heads that don’t look quite right due to me misreading the chart. I don’t know that I will ever like charts…
June 29th, 2007 at 3:38 am
Bleh, I’m sorry with the confusion on the pattern instructions.
If it makes you feel any better, one of the big lace books, Heirloom Knitting, uses all the same characters on every row - they don’t change whether it’s WS or RS. It’s really not you.
They do the “purl on WS, knit on RS” thing because the chart is also a visual representation of what you get when you’re done. So all the black stuff looks like purls because you’re purling on the RS and knitting on the WS so it makes all the bumps on the front. And all the white stuff looks like stockinette because you’re doing a knit-on-the-front, purl-on-the-back. It’s kind of meant to help you look at it and think “oh, this bit is all stockinette so I should knit this stitch”- that kind of thing. If they used black boxes for purl on all the rows, you’d get a black/white/black/white stripe chart which wouldn’t look much like the actual knitting. The checkboard is a good example, because you can *see* it will look like seed stitch in there.
Anyway, I’m sorry about all the trouble you’re having. La’s right, you’ll totally be great though. I was so excited when I first did some cables (I haven’t made a cabled anything, it was just a swatch). I did it and it was a big epiphany - I thought, “it’s just braiding yarn as you go!” So nifty to see the little cables come up.