Around in a Circular… Double Pointed… Thing

Hello, crafty and sundry!

I have to say, I’ve been having way too much fun lately. Of course, a part of that has been knitting up a storm. I finished my scarf in that really fun pattern, and suffices to say, I am well pleased with it. Of course, watch the winter continue to stay too mild to really need it… but we’ll see. At least it’s made, and teasing me that I should buy more of the wool and make matching accessories… hrm… I think it’s fair to say that practice made perfect in working the pattern though, and here in the second (and a half iteration), I did a better job of keeping my barely functioning brain following along the pattern. Mind, it hides mistakes well enough by dint of being fanceh-frilly, but still. Better to be able to do it right!

Now, I can knit circular, and I can knit magic loop, but I have not had a lot of luck figuring out double point… until now. I’d flipped through assorted tutorials off and on over the past year, slowly absorbing how-to knowledge. I found this one from The Purl Bee to be of the most use, for one silly reason — because she put her needles down on a desk, which somehow made it easier for my brain to process how to hold the working needle while letting the other two rest. As you can see from the picture to the left, I managed a few rows! I need to practice, maybe do a pair of socks or something that’s a simple tube, but I think the idea of what to do is finally in my head. It also helps that my brain has quit being a whiny baby about knitting a row before joining. It’s not like it’s hard to leave a little tail and use that to close up the tiny little gap formed by not joining in the foundation row, yanno? Really on the whole, it amuses me how daunting every little thing in knitting is… until you do it. And then, really, it’s not so bad!

I ended up going to Hobbycraft with the childlings and the husband the other day. While there, my big girl declared that I needed to buy wool to make myself a hat or a scarf (apparently also, in lime green). I talked her around to me making a hat for her, and into the Sirdar Snuggly Crofter DK wool. The colour here is 0174, Skye, and the wool is one I’ve wanted to use because it claims to have a ‘Fair Isle effect’. Which means that it sort of knits up a pattern. Sort of. I wanted a simple pattern to show off the patterning, so I went with the Yellow Child’s Hat by Erin Douglas. I didn’t do a gauge at first, or else I’d’ve realised that the circumference claimed by the pattern bore no relationship to what I actually knitted up… and, I think, I tend to still knit too tightly when I’m working in the round. It pulls over the kiddo’s head though, and she rather likes it.

Which circulars… circles… me back to the double pointed needles. The pattern calls for it to be done on DPNs, but I did it on circulars. One of my best friends said she’s had no problems finishing off hats with only circulars, but I wanted to make sure I understood the rudiments of DPNs before I got to the last couple of rows. And yes, I did manage to finish it off just fine on circulars! But I still ordered myself a couple of sets of DPNs because yanno… I had Christmas and birthday money to spend, so might as well splash out for something I’d not normally buy, right? Well okay, maybe I would have bought them eventually, but anyways. Now I just get to go hog wild buying myself knitting shinies, which I will show off at a future date. For now, y’all can cast envious glances at my cupcake carrier, and extra Kenwood spatulas, hee hee.

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