Part Two: Getting The Hang Of It

Well, things have moved on a bit since that slightly disastrous Thursday when I ruined my knitted necklace.

I had a Knit Night organised for Friday evening and knew I could count on Gill and Sarah to help me iron out the troubles I'd been having getting to grips with purling. Sarah had brought 5mm double-pointed needles (dpns) on a cable for me to try out as she swears it's an easier way to knit than faffing about with long needles.

I'd decided that I was going to knit a neck warmer in moss stitch that looks the same on both sides. This entails casting on an uneven number of stitches, beginning each row with knit 1, and then knit 1, purl 1 along each row - nice and simple but makes an interesting texture. I picked up my standard 5mm 14" (how idiotic is it to have both metric and imperial butting along at once?), straight needles and used Sarah's cowl to judge that I wanted the neck-warmer to be approximately 20 cms wide. I then proceeded to cast on stitches.

The first problem I encountered was that I naturally knit quite tightly, so I was having trouble casting on loosely enough to make a success of the first row. I tried and tried several times, Sarah even showed me a different way of casting on, but I was still casting on too tight! Eventually, she suggested that I was having too much trouble controlling the long needles and so perhaps I might give the dpns with a cable a try.

Lo and behold, I found it much easier to cast on loosely and get going. Gill mentioned that I should make sure the yarn was away from me for the knits and towards me for the purls. Ok, that's that sorted out. Then I got a bit confused about how exactly I was supposed to produce moss stitch that was the same on both sides. I'd found a Blog that seemed to explain this but then I realised I was following the instructions on how to do American moss stitch, which is what we call 'double moss'. Apparently, what we call 'moss stitch', Americans call 'seed stitch'. This highlights a bit of a issue with using the internet for knitting help: a lot of the really great, helpful stuff is American and they frequently use different terminology to us Brits. So, another lesson learnt.

Then, I found I was a few rows in and had gained several stitches on one row (quite an achievement, go me!). Ah, for feck's sake. So, another rip back and my yarn is starting to get quite fluffy and therefore trickier to work with. However, I found this site that had a nice little caveat: 'Make sure you bring the yarn between your needles to bring it back and forth for your knits and purls'. Aha, that explains that one then: I'd been yarning over by accident every so often. With that in mind, I started again and this time I knew to be conscious of bringing the yarn forward between the needles for the first purl and then moving it back for the knits and forward for the purls.

Suddenly, my work started to make sense:

So, I'm sure that, by the time I've finished this project, I'll be the finest knitter and purler in the land. Maybe.

Has anyone else had such trouble getting to grips with the basics? Please, tell me I'm not the sole candidate for Idiot Extraordinaire of the Knitting World (although I do kinda fancy a knitted crown and sash).

Part One: Damn And Blast It!

I've been riding high on a creative wave of inspiration for a few weeks and I knew it was only a matter of time before I came across a glitch. The 'Knitted Necklace' project is being shelved for a short period because I've come to realise that I need to re-learn some basic stuff if I'm not going to repeatedly screw up.

I'm very careful about how I use the precious hours I get when my son is at nursery (three hours, three mornings a week). That time gets divided between having a shower, doing household drudgery and squeezing in a bit of something to do with blogging (reading other blogs, researching, writing etc.). So, last Thursday, I had allocated half an hour to sitting and getting on with the knitted necklace, which was now about eight inches in length.

I'd realised that the reason I find purling tricky is because I am not holding the working yarn in a way that produces enough tension. Apparently, I can get away with this when doing knit stitch but purl requires good tension to get the yarn you loop around the right-hand needle to go underneath the left needle easily. I thought I would experiment with trying to hold the yarn differently and soon found quite a comfortable way to do it (winding it around my ring finger on my left hand). However, a few rows in, I noticed that the stitches were looking awkward. I counted them: 17. How the holy jebus did I gain three stitches?! Right, I thought, it's fine, I think I can see at what point I went wrong and I'll just undo each row until I'm at the right point again.

Row number one undid just fine. Row number two started to look dodgy and I realised I must've dropped a stitch too at some point but I'd gone past that bit. Ok, never mind, I'll keep going. Hmmm, now it's looking even more dodgy...and why is my yarn suddenly sticking out all over the place? Oh dear. Think I've messed this up irrevocably, I'll have to start again.

I began to tear the whole thing back to the beginning but suddenly the whole thing snagged and started to knot itself. Bugger. Massive bugger. I tried to untie the knot but the wool was stretching itself out of shape and I couldn't get it to budge at all.

Out came the scissors and I now have a Knitted Necklace that looks like this:

Balls.

I am most cross at having messed up some beautiful yarn and so I am putting it away for now because I can't be trusted with it. I will not be daunted by this set-back. Rather, it is giving me the opportunity to go back to basics and really practise perfecting my stitches before I try doing anything else with my precious wool. If I repeat this often (and loudly) enough then I will start to believe it. I also might get sectioned but, hey, it's all the name of art, people!

The new project is going to be 'The Neck-Warmer of Mossiness'. I have some spare Sirdar Supersoft Acrylic Aran in Olive from the ongoing 'Blanket of Death' project (olive didn't go with the other colours, so it's not being used). I have decided to learn moss stitch, both because it seems appropriate (moss colour, moss stitch) and because it entirely involves knits and purls and that means I'll get brilliant at both (in theory).

Ah well, onwards and upwards, as they say ('they' probably need a slap, the smug bastards).

Abstract Expressionism For Toddlers

Applestar is the name of my three year old son's nursery and it has been partly responsible for what my brother has amusingly termed my 'domestic apotheosis'. Felix and I attended a parent-and-child group there for almost a year and a half before he started at the nursery. While the children (hopefully) play happily, the adults are given the chance to engage in a particular craft which is connected to the seasons e.g. making little elves out of felt before Christmas. I would like to write in more detail about this at some point but for now I shall say that it has provided me with creative inspiration, got me into crafts, and helped me to re-learn lost skills.

Felix, came home from nursery with the following piece of artwork a few weeks ago:

When it was handed to me, I gushed the requisite, 'Oh, lovely darling!' but thought, 'Oh my God. Who did he murder and does the blood splatter pattern indicate blunt force trauma or the use of a sharp-blade?' From my experience attending the parent-and-child group, I knew better than to expect the kind of scribbles you'd normally get from an early years setting. That's because Felix's nursery fits under the Steiner Waldorf umbrella and they have a very particular way of doing pretty much everything, including 'art'.

A few weeks ago, I received the following invitation for a Parents' Evening:

If you look very carefully at the bottom, you'll see 'Parent Forums: Colour'. I didn't know what this meant, except I imagined it had something to do with the 'crafts' part of the invitation. What it meant was that we were going to discuss 'colour' and how it is approached in the nursery. What it meant was that we were going to have a go at the kind of painting our children do at the nursery; the kind of painting that produces something that apparently looks a bit CSI.

It was explained to us that children don't see colours in the same way as adults do until they are around 5 or 6 e.g. they may see red as green and green as red. So, very careful consideration is given to how colour is approached in a Steiner setting (they're quite famous for having the walls and curtains in a pale shade of pink, which is actually more like a rather soothing green to young, developing eyes).

When it comes to painting, children are introduced to primary colours one by one and use watery paint on wet cartridge paper. This makes the paint impossible to control and means that the children are not expected to 'paint a house'...unless, that is, your ideal abode is a swampy mess (hey, I'm not judging here). This method is about discovering colour and media: how does paint work? How does paint move? What happens when colours are mixed together? I realise that this may sound like utter madness to most people and I have to be honest and say I was a little skeptical during the introduction (open, yes, but definitely a tad wary).

We were all give a wooden board, told to damp sponge it so that a layer of water remained on the surface, given strong cartridge paper and told to damp sponge the bubbles out and flatten the paper onto the board. The part of me that enjoys rituals rather liked this aspect of preparing the materials. We were then given pots of watery paints (blue, yellow and red), asked to choose a brush, and given a pot of water to clean the brush and add more water to our work if necessary.

My first impulse was to see what happens when you allow the paint to drop from a paintbrush onto the surface we'd prepared. I picked yellow and began gently splashing drops onto the paper. The result was quite magical and hypnotic: each drop hit the paper and instantly spread its pigment, sending out little, fingery branches that reminded me of those 'grow your own crystal' packs I used to love as a child. We mostly worked silently and every one did different things: some creating Turner-esque landscapes and others ending up with wild nebulae of swirling colours. It was fascinating that you couldn't just force the materials to work for you but rather had to observe the effects and marvel as your own mind used its imagination to bestow meaning and narrative to the results.

I don't think the human mind can help but try to interpret its surroundings. Perhaps this realisation gets to the core of this way of working: the genesis of creativity lies in our own imaginations and the purest expression of this is not forced, requires no instruction and reveals itself to us rather than allowing us to impose our will on it. The point of the exercise lies in the process rather than the result, which is why it doesn't matter what the thing looks like in the end.

Having said that, this is my supreme masterpiece and I am applying to St. Martin's College posthaste:

I have entitled it 'Rothko Meets Miro'. Yes, I am a Geeeaynius.

How my lovely little boy, who is renowned for his strong will and his requirement that everything bend to it, felt when producing his piece I can only ever guess. I am grateful that I was given a little insight into his experience through the chance to be a nursery school child again for an evening. It's all too easy for adults to stop wondering and become sucked into the mundane, the corporeal, the safe, and to stop allowing ourselves to discover, to be given a little space to forget received wisdom and just be free for a bit.

So, the nursery children seem to have discovered red and I'm looking forward to them being introduced to blue and yellow (if only to move from 'slasher film' territory into something more like 'la-di-da, lovely spring flowers!').

Knitting a Necklace

The blanket I use for my backgrounds was knitted by the lovely Virginia Campbell for my little boy, Felix.

My one random purchase at Unravel was 70% super fine alpaca and 30% blue-faced leicester DK in Mustard and Moss from UK Alpaca. I had to have it because it was so soft and squashy, I loved the colours and it was on offer (£3.50 per ball rather than £5.50). Gill and Sarah (my Knit Night buddies) said that I could always make socks out of it, so that rather sealed the deal for me.

I would like to learn to knit socks and I found a wonderful tutorial by Kristin at Silver's Place after a bit of Googling. Ok, so this shit just got complicated. I mean, four needles and trying not to drop them and/or all your stitches? Sounds like a recipe for complete disaster, as I'm not renowned for my dexterity. Indeed, that's one reason for starting to learn crafts: getting better at doing stuff with my hands. Add that to the fact that I bought two different colours of wool and I'm just not so keen anymore. I will learn to knit socks but I will start with a single colour and not complicate things more than necessary.

So, what to do with my mustard and moss alpaca? Well, while at Unravel I saw a few knitted and crocheted necklaces that I thought were pretty creative and there was also a very fetching example on the final episode of Dancing On The Edge (set in the 1930s), worn by the character Sarah. It looked simple and I loved the idea of pinning the two strands together using a brooch at the collarbone. I think I will use some of the felt that I bought at Unravel to make a flower with a button or bead centre. This way I also get to practise my sewing skills! 'That is totally something I could do', I thought.

So here is the project in its infancy. I'm using 9" long, 4mm needles, cast on fourteen stitches in the Mustard and am practising my stocking stitch (knit one row, purl one row). I have tried stocking stitch once before and it came out a complete mess because I find purling a bit of a fiddle. The picture above shows my second attempt because I got several rows done and then realised I'd somehow gained two stitches (I probably accidentally did a couple of yarn overs while purling).

I went back to the You Tube videos I originally used to learn to knit (Knitting Tutorial for Beginners) and checked that I was doing stocking/stockinette stitch correctly. Some people might find the style patronising but that is precisely what I need: please treat me like a clueless idiot and show me each step nice and slowly, thanks. My second attempt is going pretty well and I think it should curl around  itself in a pleasing way and therefore be a little more casual than the 1930s version. I haven't quite decided whether to knit random stripes in each colour (some thick, some thin) or to use up all the Mustard and then use as much Moss as I need to achieve the desired length.

What I need next is a large brooch pin, something to go in the centre of the flower and some coordinating thread. Watch this space and I'll let you know how it progresses.

Unravel

I started this blog because I went to Unravel. I've been stuck in a creative rut for about a year and a half, trying to learn to knit by myself and not getting very far, but I got together a little Knit Night group with two friends who were already enthusiastic knitters. This was the beginnings of me showing more interest but I was still a bit at sea and didn't understand what they were talking about when it came to different yarns, needles, patterns etc. 

At Unravel I saw strange and beautiful things and felt very inspired by all the creative people there. Had I realised I would be so inspired that I would want to start a blog, I would have taken pictures of everything (note to self: take photos!). I didn’t really know what to expect but what I found gave me the ‘bit of a creative kick up the bum’ that I really needed. It’s all very well having books and the internet at your disposal but there’s nothing quite like being surrounded by talented, knowledgeable people and seeing the most glorious craft merchandise you could hope for all in one place. 

I didn’t have much money to bring but I did know that I wanted some short 4mm (I actually needed 5mm but never mind) needles for my endless Blanket of Death project and to see if I could get any felt to try out some projects in the Claire Youngs books (Scandinavian Needlecraft and Folk Art Needlecraft) I’d bought for my Birthday. I was completely astounded at how many stalls there were in room after room after room of The Maltings and I ended up with little stash of goodies. I think I can say I've got a definite leaning towards a particular colour palette.

From bottom left, clockwise: short 4mm needles from Addicted2Knit; tiny wool sock brooch by Judy Hardman £2.50 (she makes them to try out colours and patterns, then sells them as brooches - genius); 50g balls of UK Alpaca DK alpaca and blue-faced Leicester in Moss and Mustard £3.50 each (in bargain bin, usually £5.50); bale of assorted felt squares £8 and pure wool 50p a ball from Eliza Conway; Unravel guide; Knitting for the Absolute Beginner by Alison Dupernex.

It was fascinating to see people working, both to while away a little time at their stalls and as demonstrations of particular skills such as spinning.  I very much enjoyed having a go at spinning wool with a hand spindle and trying to knit masssive things with massive needles (photograph courtesy of Sarah Fenn). 

Ingrid Wagner (right) was selling enormous needles and yarn. It felt a bit like being on the set of The Borrowers. I exclaimed, ‘How on earth are you supposed to knit with THOSE?!’, was promptly handed a piece of work and told that you can simply use knit stitch and it will create things like seat pads, rugs and other large textiles very quickly. Then she picked up a pair that were more like something you'd row with and showed us how to let the floor do the heavy support work for you. Mind-boggling, fantastical stuff and I definitely fancy trying to make a massive rug out of massive wool. Ingrid is completely awesome, comes across as a great teacher and I'd love to go on one of her Big Knitting Workshops one day.

I'm already looking at what craft fairs I can go to next, what I might need and what I might learn. For now though, I've got a few project ideas in mind, using the things I bought, and I will be taking you through the journey of how these evolve and hopefully turn into lovely things for me, my family and friends.