I finished my son’s scarf this morning and not a moment too soon. It is frigid cold outside! He loves it and proclaimed it “soft and fuzzy.” But of course when I went to wrap it around his face he complained about having his mouth and nose covered up. That’s a three year old for you.

The more I knit on his scarf the looser the tension got until it was pretty much back to my old tension. I also think I’m knitting at a fairly good pace now with the continental method. I’ll have to see what happens when I throw the purl stitch into the mix. I’ve been thinking about that poncho mess. It really doesn’t look very good and I should just rip the whole thing out again. Since it’s more of a spring poncho anyway, I’m thinking I’m going to do the deed…rip it out and put it aside for a little while.

My next project will be some mittens and a hat (and maybe a scarf) for my 5 year old. Right before Christmas on a yarn run for my mom’s scarf, he fell in love with this fleecy type yarn called Snowflake by Sirdar. He was cuddling it and holding it up to his cheek and saying how soft it was. I bought three skeins but I’m thinking I’ll have to go back for more. I have this idea that I want to make his mittens and hat with two strands held together. After working with Polarspun (which is very similar to this yarn), I saw how thin it knit up and I want to make something a little thicker and warmer. I’m going to have to play with the guage and try to find a decent pattern to work from.

Sigh. The last few days I’ve been perusing the many knitting blogs out there. I’ve alternately been feeling inspired by and jealous of all the wonderful knitting I’ve seen. So many people are making wonderful sweaters and other projects and all I keep doing are ponchos and scarves. Maybe it’s time to try something more complicated. Maybe I’d better master the continental knitting first. I think part of it is that I’m so used to crochet where fingers and hook fly along at lightening speed. Even though I’ve been knitting for a few years now, it’s still a pretty slow and labor intensive process for me. I’m hoping switching knitting styles really helps.

On the needles….

Right now I have two projects that I’m alternating between while I practice knitting continental style. First is a basic garter stitch scarf made from Polarspun for my younger son. It’s actually coming along fairly well. I have the knit stitch down and it goes pretty smoothly, but I’m still not happy with my tension. The loops are fairly tight on the needles, like they were way back when I first started knitting.

The second thing I’m working on is the Microspun poncho. It is just *ok*. I’ve made a few obvious mistakes in it, but I’m really not in the mood to frog the whole thing. I’ve already ripped it out once, and the thought of doing it again makes me cringe. It’s done in stockinette stitch and while I think I have the purl motions down, again my tension is off. This one is pretty tight too and difficult to slide on the needles.

I’m not too sure how to fix the tension problems except to keep plugging away. If I continue to make mistakes in the poncho I’m going to have to pull the whole thing out because everytime I look at it I will see those twisted stiches and it will drive me crazy. *Sigh* I hate making mistakes and I hate ripping out. Just can’t win.

Let’s see…in the last week the whole family (including me) has been completely sick. Drippy noses, hacking coughs, fevers…the whole deal. M. and T. are just about well and I’m going to live, but A. is really sick. It seems that he has bronchitis. He’s missed a whole week of work, so anyone who knows him, knows that he’s really bad off.

Last Saturday I really wasn’t in the mood to go back to my afghan so I dug out the Chenille Thick & Quick for my hat and scarf set. I finished both of them by Sunday. I love them! So furry and warm and perfect for this past week’s deep freeze.

I then started working on this poncho from Lionbrand. I love working with the Microspun yarn. It is so soft and yummy. But my first venture into pattern design was a complete failure. I decided that instead of one large rectangle, I wanted to make it in two rectangles seamed together so that the points of the poncho would hang better. Well there is a reason there are no seams in this pattern (except for sewing two edges together to form a neck opening). After knitting two rectangles and trying for ages to sew them together in some sort of fashion, I discovered that it simply could not be done in any sort of decent way. It looked hideous! So I frogged the whole thing.

This leads to the title of the blog entry. Continental knitting. In the meantime my new issue of Creative Knitting arrives in the mail and I promptly read the thing cover to cover. A very interesting article discusses the merits of continental knitting versus English knitting. Now, since I have long been a crocheter, I originally tried to teach myself to knit continental style but met with complete failure. I figured now that I have about three years or so of knitting experience under my belt, maybe I could do it this time around.

I am a complete convert. Yes, it’s a bit awkward right now. Yes, my tension is way off. Yes, I’m knitting as slow as a complete beginner. But, I can see the potential. I’m already gaining speed and my hands are already relaxing. My tension is still tighter than before and it’s hard to slide the stitches on the needles. But it’s getting better all the time.

I’ll keep you posted as I work my way through the Microspun poncho. I figured that would be a good project to practice on because changes in tension wouldn’t be too noticeable.

After weeks of knitting, I’ve been the mood to crochet lately. So about a week and a half (or two weeks) ago I began this Crochet Great Lengths Afghan. It’s actually my first time making a granny square type of afghan, so I’m pleasantly surprised at how fast the thing is coming together. My previous experience with afgans is confined to a monster of a 64-different-squares sampler afghan (which I foolishly chose as my first project after I taught myself to crochet, completed once square of single crochet, and declared myself ready for something harder). It took me three years to finish that project! I also crocheted a baby blanket for each boy while I was pregnant, but those were small and worked in one large piece.

So after just a week and a half I am nearly a third of the way done with making the squares. As of this morning I have one square done and six others almost done.

But the problem with making quick knitted projects for so much recently is that I was getting a little antsy to finish something. So this morning I decided to dig around in my stash for the yarn and pattern for this Day or Night Bag made with Lionbrand Chenille Thick & Quick:

The pattern came from this booklet. It only took about 2 hours of crocheting and then another hour and half to finish (I hate weaving in all those loose ends…I really need to remember to do it as I go!) At least I was finishing while the boys were napping and I got to finish watching Love Actually, a cute movie saved on TiVo.

So now that I have the satisfaction of finishing something I think I’m ready to go back to the afghan. Although, I do have the yarn (more Chenille Thick and Quick) for a hat and scarf set upstairs in my stash……

This year, I decided to finally attempt to make a Gingerbread House with the boys. How hard could it be? I figured that I would assemble the house part quickly and then the boys could get to the fun stuff. Little did I know that assembling the house was a multi-step, hours-long-drying-time process that greatly dampened any enthusiasm they may have originally had for the project. But we (meaning I) perservered and finally the boys got to stick candy all over the house. Of course decorating the thing with the icing and trying to make icicles hang “just right” off the edge of the roof is something I’m not likely to repeat any time soon. I have a new appreciation for anyone who assembles these things on a yearly basis. Possibly a fun and rewarding activity if done on my own, but with small boys along for the ride it’s just a definite big headache.

The house was on display throughout the Christmas season and a few days ago before I let them tear it apart I snapped a few pictures of the thing.

It was delicious too, if you like Gingerbread with a serious crunch.