knitting: my bathroom rug

My summer goal (I make these things, and for the most part, keep them) is to finish all the projects I have on needles. So, here is one thing I finished, a new bathroom rug.



Rug with/cat



I'm also learning how to use a digital camera. So, these pictures are not necessarily the best. The rug is from the Classic Knits at Home book. Unlike the pattern in the book, I choose to use Lion's Brand cotton ease in grey and stone. I also did it on size 9 needles instead of size 7. I wanted to it have a slightly looser weave, and I have something on my size 7 needles that I didn't want to finish before starting this. At any rate, if anyone wants to duplicate what I've done, they'll need to knit two additional short row panels. It's not long enough, otherwise. Once you get the hang of knitting short rows, which the book explains pretty well, the rugs knits pretty fast. It probably took me two weeks, but I suspect it's a weekend project for someone who doesn't just knit for an hour or two at a time. The only hard part is grafting it together. I'm still not sure if I did that part right.

knitting: forgetting things

Knitting is something I taught myself. My great grandmother apparently used to earn extra money knitting for Dillards in Little Rock, and family lore has it she refused to give it up after she broke her wrist and the doctor told her she would probably never have full use of her hand again. She would knit, with tears streaming down her face, in defiance of medical science. It apparently worked as a kind of home grown physical therapy because she need regain the full use of the wrist. At any rate, knitting is in my genes. So, I was flummoxed the other day when I sat down to begin a baby hat for a new dad in my department and I had totally forgotten how to do a picot edge. It's a lacey kind of edge, and this pattern calls for a cable cast-on versus a long-tail cast on. I finally re-learned it, but I've never totally forgotten how to do a certain kind of stitch or pattern before. I even taught myself how to do short rows for the world's most complicated baby cardigan (darn Vogue patterns). So, I'm blaming this one on the dissertation.