Yippee! I finally got around to this post. So let me tell you what’s going on first and then I’ll jump into my knitting/crocheting odyssey.
I have re-re-rediscovered crochet and tacked on knitting just because. I put so many REs because at one point my mom tried to teach me but I didn’t pick it up and then I tried it again and stopped and so on and so forth. Well this time around, I picked it up and kept going.
I decided to catalog my projects on my blog, because what else am I going to put on here besides new release announcements and the occasional movie review, right? So this is the first installment with many more to come because knitting and crochet are both relaxing for me. If I’m going to do them, I’m going to be making something. My first project was knitting.
It all started in November…
For the Doctor Who fans out there, you know November 2013 was the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. A momentous occasion which called for a simultaneous world release of the 50th Anniversary special and a theatrical release. The hubby and I went to the theatrical release because why not?
While there, the hubby said he wanted the 4th Doctor’s scarf. You’ve seen it in online stores. But me being me, I thought, “Why not make it myself?” I’m handy enough. I could do it. But where do I start? A simple web search turned up the most FABULOUS Doctor Who site for those who want to knit the 4th Doctor’s scarf.
That site is http://www.doctorwhoscarf.com/. Easy to remember, right? I was so stoked when I found this site. It would be smooth sailing from here. The hard part was over. The site has patterns for all variations of the scarf and what yarns to use and where to get them as well as tips. Perfect.
Now, I just need the supplies and to learn how to knit. That second thing was really important. My first stop was the Learn to Knit section of Lion Brand. The videos there are easy to follow, however they don’t have videos for every little thing. I’m a visual learner. SHOW me what to do and I can do it. Give me instructions and I might (big might) be able to figure it out after a few dozen mistakes.
YouTube was a HUGE help in that regard. For all that Lion Brand lacked, the many, many, MANY people on YouTube made up for it. Now that I’m so much further along in my learning, I can confidently recommend (for the beginning knitter) The Crochet Crowd. Yes. They do knitting too. 😛 Mikey is a wonderful teacher for pretty much everything knitting and crochet. He answers every question I could possibly have without me having to ask.
Another really amazing teacher whose videos saved me tons of tears is Liat Gat. So if you are getting into knitting, do yourself a favor. Head over to YouTube, look up The Crochet Crowd and Liat Gat, and subscribe to those feeds. You will thank me for that bit of advice. I didn’t find out about it until waaaaay after.
But I digress. I had my pattern, I was getting my materials, and I was practicing on acrylic yarn while I waited for my wool yarn to show up (I had to order a lot of the colors online because my local store didn’t have them). Because I wanted to stay with one type/brand of yarn, I chose to buy the Cascade 220 Superwash colors under the original pattern link of the Doctor Who Scarf site. They aren’t 100% accurate, but close enough.
Let me tell you one thing. It was NOT cheaper to make it myself. Wool is expensive. But I had already started and I wasn’t going to let a little thing like cost stop me. Also I had no clue what else to get the hubby for Christmas.
Armed with my pattern and my yarn and my knitting needles, I set off on my knitting journey. It took me the majority of December to knit using simple garter stitch all 12ft of that scarf, using 7 different colors, complete with fringe. I finished the night of 24 December and put the finished product in a Tardis blue gift bag under our “tree.” (Note: We have cats. There are no trees in this house, just the thought.)
Check it out. The hubby is holding it for me.
At this time I would like to note that I did not block the finished piece. My thinking is that’ll it stretch plenty on its own once he starts wearing it. That might be a knitting no-no, but it’s my project. So there. 😛
This was my very first knitting project and by no means was it perfect from start to finish. I goofed a LOT. I was frantic when I dropped stitches because of not paying attention and stitches fell off the needle and almost cried when I had to rip back almost an entire chunk of color (one of the big chunks) because of a missed stitch that I couldn’t figure out how to weave back in.
But as the videos on YouTube said, that’s all part of knitting. Mistakes will happen. You just need to not freak and to know how to fix them. Rather than make you search high and low for terminology and such, here are the videos I used.
** Putting stitches back on the needle correctly after unraveling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmAc0BIdHKU
** Fixing dropped knit stitch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLizMfZybOM
** Changing Colors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckzi_bhg2UE
** Weaving in Ends
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O51m7EHMdEA
That is my first installment of my new hobby. I’m working on and off on a cheaper version of the 4th Doctor’s scarf using acrylic yarn that is true to the color names if not the show’s colors. I’m in no hurry with it so it’ll be a while before I post it. But I have many more projects to come. Look forward to those posts.