Saturday, August 9, 2014

My Very First Knit-Along

I've been following along my very first Knit-Along and I must say, I'm not a good follower. :P

We're at Week 6 and I finally finished Week 2's square - today.

So, what's a Knit-Along you ask?  It's usually a project that you do virtually with a whole bunch of other knitters (normally) to learn a new technique, stitch pattern, or pattern type (i.e. sweater, scarf, mittens, etc.).  My Knit-A-Long is about making a cable afghan.  It's from CreativeBug and is called Cabled Afghan Knit-Along with Edie Eckman.

Here's Week 1's Bias Garter Stitch Square:
This was a fun starter square to begin with.  I haven't done anything on a bias and it was fast, easy and fun to see my square growing bigger and bigger and shrinking back to the corner.  In short, it was pretty cool. :)  Unfortunately, I'm not using the recommended yarn nor needle size (remember all that "gifted" cream colored yarn I had ... well, I doubled it in hopes that it would be about the same thickness as the recommended yarn. :D  But, it didn't look so thick so, I'm using my US 5 Chiagoo Twist Interchangeable needles and my gauge is a bit smaller than the recommended size.  It's suppose to be a finished 10" square ... mine is coming out to 8".  Oh well ... I'll either need to make more squares or make some kind of border ... :P

Here's Week 2's Basic Cable Square:
Working on my very first cable was ... interesting. :)  Actually, I cheated ... I watched how all the other cable squares were done (well, except for Week 6 - hey! I've been busy prepping for Hurricane Iselle and Julio) before attempting to do this square.  Cabling is actually pretty easy (so says the woman who's only done a basic cable so far). :P  It's really just knitting your stitches in a certain order.  For instance, in the basic cable, you bring the first two (2) stitches (1 & 2) to the front of your work and move it after the next two (2) stitches (3 & 4) (I know ... it sounds confusing but if you YouTube it, it's really not that bad) then just knit them in that arranged order (3, 4, 1, 2). :)

I actually started out using a stitch holder as my cable needle but found that there is a reason why a cable needle exists ... it wasn't that easy to use. :(  Then I found a super short 4.25" wooden DPN that must've been gifted to me and tried to use that.  Because I'm using metal needles, it was digging into my poor DPN.  Then, I decided to ask my knitting buddies what kind(s) of cable needles they liked to use.  Ariana likes the short wooden ones with groves on it.  Dawn likes bamboo ones or her metal one with a dip in the middle.  Dawn was super gracious and actually lent me all her cable needles to give it a try. :)  (Isn't she sooooo awesome?! :D)  I found that the bamboo one was too long for me to maneuver.   She also lent me a metal J-hook ... that was too cumbersome to use.  And the (lovely) metal one with a dip ... just right! :)  It made cabling easier to do. :)  I even gave a go at trying to cable without a cable needle (yes, it's possible) but, found that it was too cumbersome for me.  It was simply much easier to just use a cable needle.  Thanks to Dawn, I ordered a set of Clover plastic cable needles with a dip in them and hope to receive them shortly. :)

Thanks, Dawn for lending me your needles!! :)  You're the best!! :)

Ok ... now, I gotta start working on Week 3's square. :P  More to come as I work on all my squares. :)

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