Friday, April 4, 2008

The rains have returned

Well, it rained today, not all day, and not that heavily. A fine Washington mist. It didn't bother the sheep at all, and the lambs just played and played, but were ready to come in tonight for hay and grain and a chance to snuggle in nice clean straw.

I suppose this is as good as any time to talk about my knitting. After wanting to learn to knit for nearly all my life, and always ending up with the stitches so tight on the needles that I couldn't get the other needle in to knit a stitch, tearing out, starting over....same thing happening again and again....and then just ditching the whole project in disgust.......I have learned to knit! I'm not fast, and I don't get a lot done because I don't have gobs of time to devote to it.....but by golly, I'm knitting!

My first attempts had always been with the cheap, other man made stuff. this time, after raising and spinning Romney wool into yarn for over twenty years, I was determined to knit with my own yarn. At first, I used my mill spun yarn made from our fleeces, but I have branched out now to using some of my handspun yarn. Wool yarn is so forgiving, I'm not having the problems with my stitches being so tight on the needles. Maybe it's a combination of forgiving wool yarn and maybe I've mellowed over the years? And....maybe not.....maybe it's just the wonderful wool yarn.

Anyway, I do my share of frogging, but the other night my DH pointed out to me that an afghan square that I'd nearly finished with looked different, way back aways and it wasn't just one row, it was several rows! He said, "It's probably not that important", and I thought about just ignoring it, because I have to tell you, it has not been my favorite square to knit.

Each square is different, so I learn a different stitch with each stitch, and since it's a learning project, it won't be perfect anyway, but there aren't any errors so far that I've ignored. No, any errors have been done in a complete state of ignorance....and not letting him look at it!

Anyway, after considering for a couple of minutes, I pulled my needles and started frogging......he was horrified! I went back rows and rows until I found the place that was what it was supposed to be and started over again.

I feel better about it, and guess what?.....it's knitting up much easier this time.

4 comments:

lori said...

Ummm...what's frogging? Is that ripping out? Your yarn knits up beautifully, by the way! Bob wears his vest proudly (even if it is a little big ;) )

lori said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Spring Hill Shepherdess said...

My dear girl....where have you been?

Ripit/Ripit!

lori said...

Ahhhh... well, that makes TOTAL sense!