So, I’ve decided to try to tackle this bag that I mention in my last post. One of the very first links on Google (for “knitting in the round”) turned up this video. This looks completely doable to me. I ran off to Michaels to get the right needles, but they don’t have the right yarn (even after I figured out what the heck “Aran weight” yarn meant). My local yarn shop (which I didn’t even know existed yesterday) is closed until Monday. Ugh! Must wait…

In the meantime, I finished my daughter’s blue scarf and then I started, and restarted (and restarted) a “sock” for my laptop. But, then my daughter showed me a knitting pattern for a scarf in a book she’s been really enjoying (The Magic Thief) – how could I resist switching to that? (Side question – just how many times CAN you unravel and knit with the same yarn?) Sure, I just finished a scarf for her… but her brother has a scarf AND a hat (and is now angling for mittens. Ugh – mittens?! I could probably manage some sort of bag-like device that fit over his hands and tied around his wrists with a draw string… maybe…)

After my daughter went to bed, I realized that I may have gotten over my head with the scarf, too. It turns out it has a “keyhole” at each end that requires having two balls of yarn going at the same time to work each side of the scarf around the keyhole. I got spooked by this and when the instructions offered a  non-keyhole alternative, I took it. I’m regretting that a little now, because upon second thought, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. But, in the meanwhile, I’m discovering all kinds of cool things you can do with knitting and purling:

Unfortunately, I’m also learning that I really need to remember what stitch I’ve just, uh, stitched (stutch?) because the knobbly part at the bottom starts to look pretty weird if I get off by one K1-P1. Muttering out loud while I knit gets me some weird looks from Redbeard, so I’ve got to come up with some system. Maybe the way a hold the yarn out of each stitch? My purl stitch “technique” is still pretty “fluid”, though…

My hideously poor short term memory also means I also can’t keep track of how many rows I’ve done and so I’ve just been eye-balling the checked squares to make sure they’re square.  I guess I’d better figure out a trick for that, too. The problem is worse because I can’t tell how to count rows after I’ve done them!

Still – I really like how the scarf is going so far. I think I will try the “keyhole” thing at the end of the scarf.