With great pleasure, I am pleased to announce that I have nearly finished the baby bonnet from purgatory. I scrapped the screwy decreases every third or fourth or who knows what row in favor of decreasing every row. Short, simple, sweet, uniform.
And now begins the new skill lesson : picking up stitches. What in the world does that mean ? Does it have anything to do with that cool game from 3rd grade, "pick up sticks" ? Since my dear Aunt Sally is not here to help me out (I could call her but she is probably playing mah jong with her girlfriends) I turn to my trusty Vogue Knitting book. This book has EVERYTHING. Although not as cute and funny as my Aunt Sal, and not quite portable in my knitting bag, it has all the tips a new or even experienced knitter could ever need or want (plus an exhaustive stitch dictionary).
A few tips I learned about picking up stitches thanks to Vogue:
-always measure the length of the side where the stitches will be picked up
-mark off sections of 1 inch
-always pick up the same number of stitches per inch otherwise your will have an icky, bunched up edge and all of your hard work making your bonnet will be ruined (once again)
-your pattern should tell you how many stitches to pick up, if it doesn't, there is some way to determine it by multiplying the area by the stitch gauge or something like that. If this is the case, call your Aunt Sally, even if she is winning her hand at mahj.
Just so you know that I visited, and also, I didn't understand a word of what you just said ; ) Still, the blog looks great!
Posted by: Caroline | 19 October 2005 at 12:35 PM