I-Cord, Applied

I finally got the Garter Stitch Throw seamed. Crocheters out there are NOT allowed to make fun of my puckered seams. Sorry -- it was the best this crappy crocheter could do. This didn't take long once I buckled down and and got to it. I've got to get better at crocheting. I know too many great crocheters (hi, Steph and John!) not to let some of their talent rub off on me. I don't know what my block is. John and I laugh over how he understand knitting and can do it, but just likes crocheting so much better. I'm exactly the opposite.



I'm doing an applied I-cord for the edging. Basically, you do an I-cord and incorporate a picked up stitch from the edge of your knitted fabric. Not too complicated, but it took me a while to get Meg Swanson's added instructions in her mother's book, The Opinionated Knitter. Here's a little video that I made to show how I'm doing it. As you can see, the I-cord has three stitches. I knit two stitches from the pick up needle onto a dpn, slip the third stitch, do a YO, knit the picked up stitch from the throw, and then pass the slipped and YO stitches back over the picked up stitch. Slide all the stitches back over to the pickup needle, and repeat a gazillion times.

I've been working a bit on the Blue Tiger Socks -- I've yet again changed my mind on them. I'm doing a Coriolis pattern on them. They feel a little looser than most socks I'm used to wearing, but I measured very carefully. The next time I might adjust down a little. I find the pattern a little hard to read with all the page-flipping that's required -- I'm afraid I might get lost.

And, I've gotten more work down on the Cobra Sweater. I've finished the part of the body that is knit in the round, and I'm almost to the neck shaping on the flat part of the knitting for the back. I'm a little worried that I might not have enough yarn. I was looking at the opposite side a few days back and saw some weird bumps. They were pretty far back toward the beginning -- only a few inches above the ribbing. They bugged me enough that I wanted to fix them. I was afraid to ladder down that far (seriously -- dozens and dozens of rows), but I thought if I was patient, I could do it. I did this in three or four different places and managed to fix them, without any visible ladders afterward.

The problem? At some point I'd used a crochet hook to fix a missed stitch or some split yarn, and I'd gotten the lines crossed. Not terribly visible from the front, but it really annoyed me. One of the things I like about knitting is the lessons it has to teach about patience. I had to dig deep for this, but I'm glad I did.