crocheting and knitting

[cahn]

I have had this draft for a while and I guess I should post it??

Knitting:

-So, um, yeah, knitting. It's... really fun! I can see why everyone loves it. Now that I've actually got the rhythm of it (which I never did when I tried fifteen years back) I find it extremely soothing. Unfortunately it is really tough on my hands, rather more so than crochet -- I think partially because the motions tend to be a little smaller than crochet? but probably also because I am probably doing something weird with my posture when knitting that I need to fix. So anyway unless/until I can fix that, I have to keep knitting at a minimum.

-ugh it's such a pain to fix (or rip back) knitting mistakes! This is a bad combination with my short attention span, both in terms of making a ton of mistakes in general and in terms of wanting to play with learning to do new things with knitting which I then promptly mess up. In principle I know that I should be putting in lifelines everywhere. In practice, being a careless sort of person, I think maybe I just won't make anything right now where mistakes matter that much :P

Crocheting:

-I've got 15 out of 19 of the hexagons I was crocheting last time I talked about crocheting, and I have, err, 21 out of 100 squares done of the hue shift blanket I'm making for A. (Two of which were done during my parents' visit.) The hexagons will definitely get done because I love working on it so much; the hue shift blanket will take forever because it's much less fun -- partially because it's almost entirely single crochet back loop, which I have decided I'm not fond of, but mostly because for some reason I keep ending up with one too many or one too few stitches, so I have to count every single row until near the end of the square (ugh) and even with counting I still end up wrong and I've had to rip back substantial work in most of the squares at this point. (why so hard?? idk why I can't do it right!) For a while I was seriously thinking it might actually be quicker to knit the whole thing, except for that annoying bit about it being harder on my hands. But every time I finish a square I'm pleased by how it's coming along, so there's that.

-But I took a substantial break from both of those to work on baby blankets -- two of my friends are having babies. One of them it was going to be really convenient if I could finish by the time school starts, so I was focusing mostly on that. (The other mother isn't due until Christmas, so I feel like I have more time for that one :) )

random thoughts on blankets and yarn:

-...Mostly this whole baby-blanket thing is convincing me that thistleingrey is right that it's a good idea to gift hats rather than blankets. :P Blankets take a long time and I haven't got the hang of what I need to think about when selecting a pattern and yarn, so the one blanket ended up kind of small and the other one will be super duper heavy, whoops.

-One of the blankets (the small one I just finished) I made with some gradient cotton-acrylic yarn (fingering-weight) I bought on a whim because it was so pretty -- this is the first time I've crocheted with even partial cotton and, as thistleingrey warned me, it is quite hard on my hands. I made it to the end of the blanket, but I guess it's good to know I should not be getting a whole lot of this yarn in the future :P (it's so pretty though!)



-My late mother-in-law knitted blankets (fairly large blankets, too! significantly larger than either of my baby blankets are going to be) for each of her grandkids when they were born, and while I knew it was a labor of love before, I have a whole new appreciation for it now that I know how to knit <3 I wish I could tell her that! A. and I call his a "blanket hug."

-as mildred_of_midgard warned, so it has come to pass: I've started looking around and getting more interested in more expensive fancier yarn :P But, perhaps fortunately for my pocketbook, I can't buy any of it yet because I have all these other projects to do first! (And while I am totally up for starting another new project -- see also very short attention span -- we don't have any more room for yarn until I use some of this up :P
unless I throw out some of the kids toys
which honestly probably needs to be done anyway)

(but, like, if you have recs for yarn that's, oh, I'm mostly looking in the $10-$15/100g region, but let's say below $25/100g, especially fingering-weight, I'm not saying I wouldn't maybe sneak out some toys and buy some anyway be interested)

Comments

[allmyfansquees]

I'm so delighted to hear about your various crafting projects! I've pretty much completed the crochet hexagon blanket (although I've cheated and downsized it to 12 hexagons for a blanket for a new forthcoming nibling). I'm now just swapping out colours to try and get the placement I want before I commit to stitching them all together! It did take at least three tries to nail down the pattern (round 19 was a PITA for some reason) but once I did it was such a pleasure to make those. If I get hold of some more wool the right size I might tackle a full-size version for myself :D

(And I am also very interested to see if anybody has recs for pretty, not-too-expensive yarn...)

[thistleingrey]

For my part I went to hats so that I'd definitely finish before the baby arrived, heh--I'm fine with deadlines for work, but I didn't want them for crafting (and sometimes babies are early, etc.).

The pic is really pretty!

Do you find that you "read" the stitches for crochet and/or knit, if you look back at the prior row, or is it more a matter of counting? It took me forever to read knitting (multiple years), which made checking slower and harder and thus meant bigger mistakes, more ripping back.

[mildred_of_midgard]

The yarn expert I'm married to says she first needs the answers to these follow up questions:

1. What kind of fiber? Wool? Cotton? Acrylic? Other?

2. What kind of pattern? Solid, variegated, gradient?

And then she can rec you things.

She says her favorite yarn, if you want merino, is Malabrigo. It's very light, so sock weight is very light fingering weight, and if you want regular fingering weight, buy the sport weight. She says the texture is the softest wool ever. It's not cheap, but it's not outrageous, approximately in your price range.

But for more specific recs, she needs more data. ;)

-ugh it's such a pain to fix (or rip back) knitting mistakes!

Hahaha I hear this ALL the time!

Anyway, I've been wondering how your yarn crafts were going, and I'm glad for the update. :)

[lokifan]

Oh, the blanket's so pretty!