Monday Madly Knitting

It has gotten to be that time of year I dislike most.  When I have to add up how much to be finished against how much time is left.  On Saturday, I finally gave in and started the double knitting.  The only way to overcome the mental block that kept saying, Oh you're going to make a mess of that, was to dive right in. It took me three years of reading the directions over and over on heel turns, before I finally just did it with my brain shouting Danger, Danger, this will not work out.  (stop laughing)

From Knitting Kitties

I worked the ribbing 2 X 2 in a single thickness of 128 sts and twisted the knit stitches to tighten up the ribbing a bit.  That meant I had to knit with one strand and purl with a different strand into each stitch when I started the double knitting.  This will make the hat solid color knit on one side and the pattern on the other, so they can reverse it when the need arises. If you click on the Rav link, you'll see why this may be needed.  Hopefully, the spy doesn't create a Rav account just to peak.  *waves* Hi Avery.

From Knitting Kitties

As they say in the UK, I'm pretty well chuffed with myself on this first project.  It's quite fiddly going along.  I'm keeping the pattern side side strands on the top of my left index finger and the back side strand on the bottom. (Yes, I knit continental)  All the strands need to be flipped front and back of each stitch so the carrying yarns are hidden between the two layers. Because I'm using each strand at a different rate from the others, I have to stop every couple stitches to readjust for tensioning.

From Knitting Kitties

It's taking me about an hour for each row, though by this afternoon my speed did pick by a few minutes.  Slow while paying attention is the key, as I did have to carefully frog one row and it took longer than it did to knit it.  There are two more of these to make besides this one and my granddaughter's afghan to get finished by Dec. 20 at the latest.  Not to mention the four gifts to knit that won't be traveling, then the ornaments I want to make.

Nippit was upset with me yesterday, she really wanted to blog. The chart is on my laptop, with me giving it careful attention.  She kept asking if I was done yet, then thumping her delicate little foot when  I said no.  It was after the fifth time of her interrupting me that I noticed a mistake and I thumped my foot back at her.  She tried to get Dammit and Betty to dictate for her, but from what I hear, Dammit was too busy surfing Zeppelin. He still has hopes of a reunion tour.  You know like they will actually let a bunny into the arena.

Bunday will resume when I finish these hats, unless I go stark raving mad.  Then the bunnies will be most happy to report on that.