Swap Reflection

So this whole swap has been one entire learning experience for me. Here's a quick recap of what I've learned over the past two months as I've been working on various projects.

Please don't read if you don't want spoilers about what's in the kit for Cassandra. Thanks.

Colorwork. I've never done colorwork other than those horizontal stripes before, so this was a first in many areas. Not only have I learned how to do duplicate stitch on something flat with a chart, but I've also learned how to duplicate stitch on something that's small and knitted in the round (2 dozen stitches on size 1.5 needles). I've also given a try at undeliberate fair isle-type colorwork, as demonstrated in the hat I made for SPEW.

Cabling. This was probably my favorite part of what I did for the project, but I was able to cable the handle to the bag I made. It turned out nicely, but you can see my cables get better as you go from one end to the other; it was the first thing I've ever cabled.

Hats. This was actually the first hat I made. Not only did it involve colorwork, K2P2 ribbing and decreasing in a pattern, but the hardest part of the project was transferring from the circular to the dpns. I'll keep that in mind next time I make a hat because I dropped just about every third stitch and had to pick it up again.

Any sort of blocking/finishing. This should be self-explanatory... especially with the bag.

Dreaded Kitchener Stitch. Actually, it wasn't that bad and the book I have made a lot of sense with the way it was explained. Shaping the heel and working with the gusset on the mini-sock I made was actually a lot more difficult. This was the first sock I've ever made and I got lots of pictures of it because I'm not keeping it for myself.

This isn't something new, but I've always found it difficult to come up with presents for people. I've been told I do a really good job at it, but it's not easy and I honestly don't know how I do it. This swap was one of those times and I found myself reading through correspondence to find little extras to pack away in the kit I'm sending off. It's just one of those things where I want everything to be perfect, you know.

I don't have the knitting skills of a lot of the people in the group, so my handmade object isn't going to be as good as theirs are. I've only been knitting for about a year now and it's only been in the past few months that I've even done anything other than scarves and washcloths in something other than plain garter stitch. But what one can do with a little imagination and quite a bit of determination is actually quite amazing.

Accidental Colorwork

So I don't know what the name of the technique I was using to do the colorwork is, but for the SPEW hat I'm making (SPEW=Society for the Production of Excellent Wearables), I did this cool design with the white on the navy blue. I think it was some variation of a Fair Isle knitting technique because I let the color A run along the back while I was knitting with B.

Of course, since it happened by accident, I didn't use proper technique by any stretch of the imagination. I was actually waiting for a meeting and I was about to begin a white stripe in a blue hat I'm making. Since I didn't have scissors with me, I decided that maybe doing every couple of stitches with white and the rest with blue would be an interesting idea to try out. I figured I could always unravel if it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.

Fortunately, it turned out much nicer and I just made up the pattern row by row as I went along, working with multiples of five stitches (there were 80 stitches total, so that's a nice round number to play with). This turned out excellently for a first color project (besides for your basic horizontal stripes).

I'm back onto stockinette stitching in the blue yarn (my MC for this project) and I have yet to do the decreases for the hat, but it looks like my first hat will turn out nicely. I'm quite excited and I'll be sending it off to SPEW after taking lots of pictures when it's done.

I'll also post the pattern (including the colorwork pattern) here when I'm finished. It's pretty basic and out of a complexity scale from 1-10 (10 being cabled and lacework socks, 1 being your basic garter stitch scarf), I'd give it about a 3 or so.

ETA: I was actually doing a stranded Fair Isle colorwork technique, albeit a simple pattern and not doing it correctly (accidents happen, right?).

List of Skills to Learn

1. Cabling: No seriously... I've started to cable, but I'd like to get a lot better at it. I'm currently using a dpn instead of a cable needle and it's worked thus far. I'm doing a left-twisted cable for the bag for Cassandra.

2. I-Cord: So many things call for an i-cord and I don't think it'll be that difficult. At least I hope it won't. Apparently I was supposed to start with an i-cord for Severus, but I kind of missed that part. Oh well, I'll just have to do some more work at the end to make sure his stuffing doesn't fall out.

3. Duplicate Stitch: This is quite important for color-work. I'm doing a duplicate stitch for the bag I'm making for Cassandra (hoorah for new skills all in one project!).

4. Intarsia: Perhaps Intarsia would be a better choice for the colorwork I'm doing on this project, but duplicate stitch is easier to understand.

5. How to Follow a Pattern: This one should be self-explanatory. Unless I'm intent on doing everything by my own patterns (hahaha), I should really get better at following a pattern someone else has written. Especially when it comes to socks.

6. Socks! I really, really, really want to learn how to make socks. *loves*

7. Fair Isle: Another colorwork technique that I'd love to learn. There are so many beautiful projects using this technique that I would love to be able to do.