Sunday, August 20, 2017

Relaxed Knitting

I am delighted to be able to share my simple knitting project today with Slow Stitching Sunday hosted by Kathy. Since she is up to hosting her popular weekly link up, she may be on the road to recovery. If she can host, the least I can do is write a post. Thanks, Kathy, for your motivation.


It is enjoyable to be knitting a pink newborn hat for charity. It is especially rewarding and relaxing after several failed attempts. I will spare you the frustrating details, however, they included DPNs, straight needles (required a seam), too-long circular needles, magic loop, and incorrect needle size for specific yarn. Did I mention knitting up a gauge swatch was beneath me. Tsk, tsk. Soon I became obsessed in mastering a baby hat.

Therefore, back to knitting basics such as following the pattern with the correct yarn and needle size.  A gauge swatch was made. Success. Next a trip to my LYS with hopes of finding a shorter length circular needle. Another success. Bonus was the moral support and advice provided by LYS (somethings you can't get online). I am using ChiaoGoo circular needles bamboo size 6 with a 16-inch length. Initially, the cast-on (64 stitches) and first two rows seemed a bit tight, however, the stitches soon relaxed as I did also. It has been smooth knitting ever since.

The simple easy-to-follow pattern is written by Heather Wells. Click HERE for pattern. As you can see, I am making a solid color version. Knitting two-color stripes can wait for the second hat. Lol. Yarn is Cascade Superwash 220 which is quality yarn and soft for my knitting fingers, but more importantly, soft for baby's head.

Stay tuned on when the results when I am forced to use DPNs for crown shaping. Since I won't be starting the pattern with them, I think I shall be okay. Any suggestions and/or advice is appreciated.

Smooth stitches,
Jill








4 comments:

Dolores said...

It wasn't too long ago that I learned how to knit with double pointed needles. Encouragement from my blog buddies and you tube videos helped. This year I finally completed a cowl for my daughter using circular needles. I'm kinda confident now. Time and practice will do wonders. Thanks for the link to the baby hat. I am itching to make a few since there will be two new little ones born this fall.

Robin said...

Lovely sweet little hats. I'm so glad you persevered. Success!!!

The Cozy Quilter said...

Very cute! I want to learn to knit, some day...

Quiltblocksandmore said...

I can understand the frustrations with needles and swatching etc etc. when all you want to do is just knit the hat, sweater, whatever. By sticking with it, you're sure to be happy with the end result. Good job!