Friday, October 24, 2008

DUH

How long have I been knitting? Probably longer than a lot of my readers lifetimes. Would you think I could do a simple fan and feather stitch? Apparently not. I ripped out all of my scrap shawl. I couldn't handle all of the stitches on my cable, even though I had a 32" cable. So I wound it all back into a ball, started it at least twice more, and my stitch count was always off. I knew I must be doing something wrong. Duh. I was. Instead of a 12 stitch repeat, it was supposed to be an 18 stitch repeat. When I re-started it, there were 15 repeats, and after about 8 rows, there were 22 repeats. I had been leaving out 3 K2tog every repeat, every pattern row (every 4 rows). This meant that every pattern row I was ADDING 3 stitches to each repeat, and a several repeats each pattern row. That's one of the reasons the shawl was so tight on my needle.
Another reason, is that the pattern in the book, was actually for laceweight yarn, and I am using different weights. So my kinds of yarn are better suited to work end to end instead of edge to edge. I don't like to fight with a tight bunch of stitches on my cable. This cast on, I have placed markers every 18 stitches, which if I had done this the first time, I would have figured out what was wrong earlier.

I went with my friend to the Ohio Longarm Quilters Association annual 'seminar".. I'm not sure what they called it. They have some vendors for a couple of days, and a lot of classes. I took classes not geared to longarms. Two filler classes, and a 'What makes a winning quilt" class. The instructors were, Jodi Robinson, Linda McCuen, and Shirley Stutz. It was fun, and all I needed was a notebook.
Anyway, while I was gone, the electritian came over and installed the outlets in my sewing room. My husband took the day off work so that he could be here since I couldn't. That was pretty thoughtful of him. I am going to start bringing stuff up this weekend.

On the quilting front.. I did manage to buy some fabric. Coffee themed prints to add to my collection, and some Modas that I liked. I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

I hope that everyone is holding up okay, and you are all doing well.

2 comments:

Dorothy said...

Aw, don't beat yourself up. This is supposed to be fun, right?

I didn't know you had a coffee-themed collection. I have some yardage I picked up ?? years ago when a local store went out of business. It looks like it has coffee cup rings on it. I know I bought several related prints, another has postcards. If I find them, I'd love to send you some.

Robin said...

I've taken machine quilting classes with Shirley Stutz-enjoyed them and learned a lot