Frogs Everywhere

I think I've done more frogging than knitting the past couple of weeks. 

I can't say much because at least I'm now working on yarn crafting projects again.  Between the month of sewing I had to do this summer and some other miscellaneous stuff going on, I didn't really get back in the yarn crafting gear until the fall hit.

Sure, I did finish a pair of socks for my husband (finally, and without losing one this time!):

But the rest of the time since went like this:

• Finish up the custom baby dress and write up the pattern (which, being a on the fly pattern, mostly involves trying to figure out how the heck you wrote down what you wrote when making the darn thing). 
• Finally start an adult sweater to replace the one I been wearing so long I've had to darn both sleeves at the elbow (anyone remember when the work sweater was completed? It's been awhile; I can't say I'm surprised).
• Realize that I could get a sweater done for NYS Sheep and Wool if I pick up the one I was designing and knitting two years ago and un-screw up the neckline idea. 
• Get past the neckline, do another trim, then decide on another neckline trim to better match the other trim, redo the neckline.
• Finally get to the sleeves, so I do the math for the sleeves, try to work the sleeves, realize sleeve doesn't fit, rip sleeve out, adjust and restart sleeve. Now sleeve is too big on cap but tight elsewhere, rip sleeve out, get peeved at sweater when as I'm not going to finish it in time for Sheep and Wool and have no clue how to actually mathematically calculate an afterthought sleeve.  I then banned sweater to the time-out corner for a couple of days. 
• Decide that due to all the other crap that I should start a nice seed stitch cowl out of some soft yarn bought two years ago. Then I realized that the yarn is too thin to work for a good seed stitch cowl, so I surf patterns, don't like any of the patterns, get idea, try idea, rip idea out, try another idea, rip idea out, chart third idea, start idea, rip idea out, adjust chart, start idea, rip idea out, repeat two more times. I finally get an idea I'm mostly happy with off ground, but at this point I've created a time-consuming pattern for what was supposed to be an easy cowl. I resisted the urge to go find more yarn in the stash to do that seed stitch cowl.  Work on not-easy cowl on the subway for some reason.
• Go back to sweater, figure out a way to recalculate the stupid sleeves, start sleeve again, get half way done, realize it's still screwed up, rip it out.  I then realize I was using the stitch gauge instead of the row gauge to calculate everything for the sleeve, not that my method didn't work. Recalculate using correct gauge and start sleeve again.
• Decide to also work on getting baby dress pattern tech edited, tech editor finds first row has one stitch off of cast on, realize the one stitch off is because all the other calculations are screwed up and spend all night trying to figure out how the heck I managed to knit the thing in the first place.
• Then decided that I should write this blog post instead of working on sleeve or anything else I decided to design or start at the same time.

I mean, it's probably a good thing that I've gotten my design groove back.  I'm looking forward to getting something out there given the time it's been since I've had actual time and inspiration to devote to this.  But why do I have to make it so hard on myself when I could just simply work on something already written or easy without struggling through all the frogs?  Then again, I write software as a day job.  It all involves sitting there and beating your head against the wall wondering why on earth you're doing this when what you did isn't working for the 5th time...until you figure it out, get something done, and feel accomplished and confident.  Then you're more than willing dive right back into another wall because it won't be as crazy this time...right?

And if I have to frog that cowl or the sleeves one more time, the yarn is shot and I won't know what to do with myself.  Probably ban it back to the timeout corner.

The Other Important Thing To Check

I was naughty.  I didn't swatch properly for a pair of socks I started working on and it bit me in the ass.

Ok, so I'm usually naughty in this way.  Every so often I'll do a semi-proper swatch, and by a semi-proper swatch I mean I'll knit more than an inch long on a 3 to 4 inch piece before casting off. Very rarely, I'll have sufficient motivation or time to knit a proper swatch. This is usually when I'm designing, but I'll do it for other major projects where getting the size wrong is really going to ruin things.  More commonly, however, I knit a small 2" x 1" swatch, get an idea of gauge, wash it to make sure it doesn't disintegrate or grow too much, and start the project.

Of course, by half-assing it this way, you would think what bit me in the ass was the gauge.  Not so; actually the gauge is working out better than I thought it would. No, the problem was that the colors I chose for the project didn't work:

You see, in my love of dark colors, I was thinking these contrasted sufficiently enough to allow for some colorwork to be done. I explicitly bought the purple skein so that I had a color to contrast with the black.  I was so confident, I barely did any colorwork in my swatch:

Which is why I ignored the fact that you can barely see that I did any colorwork in the swatch, and went on my merry way of casting on.

By the time I finished the first colorwork segment, however, it became obvious.  You couldn't see the pattern at all.  If I was just making a striped sock, it would have worked ok enough, but that first colorwork section wasn't even the biggest and therefore I said screw it and ripped the sock back out to the toe section.  I then went statch diving and found this fingering weight yarn:

 I was hoping to use this for something like a Hitchhiker, but I was already committed to the sock pattern and this was the only yarn I found light enough to work with the black for the colorwork.  To be fair, it is coming out nicely (despite the fact that I had to pretty much write the heel directions myself since they didn't exist in the pattern):

Pattern is Vellamo by Taina Anttila

I guess the other lesson here is have a good stash.  Not that I need to tell most yarn-crafters that.

The Tale of a Broken Needle, Part 2, Or Why You Shouldn't Switch Needles in the Middle of a Project

The good news is that I finished my Mom's Hanukkah socks with time to spare:

The bad news is that, contrary to every other sock set I've knitted so far, the second one came out a bit bigger than the first:

 
Which sucks because the first was the perfect length.

Now,  I know I did the exact same thing for both of them.  Thing's like these types of cable, lace, motif, whatever patterns make it easy to write 'stop at row x' and to do so, since you're keeping track of rows and can see where you are via the pattern.  No, I'm pretty sure the difference in size is due to the fact that I had to switch needles to knit the second sock.

If you go back to this post, you'll see why that was unavoidable.  However, you'll also note that I mentioned that my gauge shouldn't be that different with another pair of nickel-plated needles.  So, I got all excited and ordered new sock needles for that size:

And just cast-ed on and went, conveniently forgetting that my analysis was based on the fact that the Knitter's Pride Nova needles and the KnitPicks Options are very similar (I wouldn't be surprised if the same manufacture makes them).  What isn't that similar are those Addi's I decided to buy because ooh, needles made for Magic Looping socks!  Must have!

So I failed, and now have two slightly different sized socks: one with a gauge of  11.25 rows per inch and another with a gauge of about 11.75 rows per inch.  And it's not like I can just rip back and adjust it so they're the same length because of the pattern; it'll be very obvious if I did that.  So...it is what it is and hopefully my Mom doesn't mind.

Of course, what I should have done, had I not been blinded by nice, new needles, was go buy the same needle brand.  But what's done is done, and it's not that far off that they're unwearable (and it's better to be bigger than smaller).

Since one of the reasons for this blog is learning from my mistakes, the moral of this story is that you should never switch needles in the middle of a project if you can help it, unless you're able to adjust for it.  And if you do have to, use the same exact needle brand and type (I shouldn't have to mention they need to be the same size too, right?).  Because your gauge really does differ between each needle, no matter if they're made of the same material, no matter how slightly, and that can be the difference between a perfect fit and slightly too big or tight.

On the other hand, the Addi Sock Rockets are really nice needles, and I loved working with them.  May have been worth it.

The Tale of a Broken Needle

I finally got to the toe of the first sock I'm making for my Mom:

I was all like, whoo hoo, I only got 18 rows left. I'll finish the sock while at the laundromat.  I'm on track for getting both done by Haunukkah.  So I packed up my laundry and my knitting (standard protocol), get to the laundromat, start my laundry, and knit one row before one of the needles decided to rip away from the cable:

Sorry for the crappy pic, but you get the idea

Not pop out (I've had that problem with KnitPicks needles before).  The cable broke. Granted, magic loop is hard on the circular needles and that spot had been snagging a bit, but this is the first time I've had one break.

My first thought was: ah, man, now I got to order another one and wait a week to finish the sock.  You see, I'm not one of those knitters that has a gazillion copies of the same needle (I have a few repeats, manly within the interchangeable set, but not many).  For my long sock-sized circulars, I have one circular of KnitPicks Options solid 47" in each size from US 0 to 3, and three Knitter's Pride Dreamz wood needles in sizes US 0 to 1 1/2.  And the only reason I own the wood ones was for the last socks I made for my Mom, in which I used an alpaca/silk blend that did not tolerate my metal needles at all.

This is actually important to the story.  Because, you see, when I ordered the three wood needles from WEBS last year (which got delivered right after Hurricane Sandy.  I was impressed it got here at all), there was a mistake in the order.  They had shipped the size 0 and 1 1/2 Dreamz needles, but had sent me the size 1 in Knitter's Pride's Nova line, which is a metal needle very similar to the KnitPicks Options.  So I contacted them to inform them of the mistake and asked how I should ship the metal needle back so I could get the wood one I wanted.  They told me to keep the metal one and they'd just send me the one I ordered (which they did very quickly because WEBS is good people).

Guess what size I just broke?

Yep, the size 1s.  So someone else's mistake worked in my favor today, and I can finish the sock and start the new one without having to wait for a new needle.  

Now, a few of you may be going: But wait, didn't you say you had the wood ones as well?  Isn't that also a backup?  No, and the reason is because different needles can produce different gauges, and this effect is in full force if the needle is a different material.  Since wood is less slippery than the light metal used for the Options/Nova needles, it causes a slightly bigger gauge.  For me, it usually has an effect of making my gauge a half stitch bigger. Now, there is the slim possibility that the Nova needles will also change my gauge, but since they are the same material, it's way more likely to have a small effect if anything.  If I was doing it properly I would re-knit a swatch to make sure.  Since I'm on the toe of the first sock, I really don't care.  As long as the toe and the second sock don't come out radically different than the first one (which can happen even with the same needles for me), it'll work.

Now, I'll fully admit that there is another solution I didn't think of until now.  I do have the full Options sock DPN set as well. I could switch to those, just to finish the toe at least (I would be very wary of trying to knit the second one on DPNs after doing the first one Magic Loop.  Despite it being the same brand of needle, DPNs screw with my knitting style and therefore will most likely change the gauge even more.  And there's the fact that I don't like DPNs).

Nothing like the random coincidence that ends up working out. Anyway, at least I pack backup projects and got some of another present done:

[And yes, I know I haven't done the Rhinebeck debrief yet.  I'll be honest and say that it was great but very similar to my experience last year, so I dunno what to actually debrief, which is why it's not the post before this one.  I'll show off yarn and pictures at least.  Next post.]

Sometimes the Mistakes Work in My Favor

First, it's time for a beer because in this whole post, most of it works out in the end (or maybe it was time, thought I guess it's always time because it's always beer'o'clock somewhere):

In the interest of explaining that I'm not an alcoholic, I took this picture weeks ago.  It is really too late for a beer right now.

 Anyway...a couple of weeks ago, I started the actual knitting process for the tank I'm designing.  And started it.  And started it.  But after that, I finally got past the first five rows and managed to make some progress on the garment.

I then did the absolutely correct thing and after getting a bit into it, I steam-blocked it and re-took my gauge measurements. It turns out that, of course, the gauge swatch I made, and even took measurements on just like the class I took told me to (take a bunch and average), is a lying liar that lies.  My gauge in the project is about 0.5 stitches more per inch than I used for my calculations, and 1.5 rows less.

My first thought was 'oh, great, I got to rip it out AGAIN.'  But first, I went back to my spreadsheet and changed the gauge listed there.  I looked at the new results of my calculations.  Looked back at the garment.  It didn't seem right.  If I were to cast on the number of stitches my spreadsheet now produced with the new stitch gauge, it would be too big for me.  To test this, I tried on the little bottom strip I had.  It fit as is. 

So, screw it, I'm keeping my calculations as my original stitch gauge.  This yarn has some sort of weird gauge warping ability, as this isn't the first time something's come out bigger than it should in this yarn (remember my first tank attempt?).  I should note that this is after I calculated a -1 negative ease into my calculations because I was worried about the cotton stretching too much. Oye. But that part worked out.

However, that leaves me with the row gauge being off.  Now, I had already started on the waist shaping, so changing the row gauge would mean changing the whole frequency of the shaping.  This meant I may have to rip it out, at least part way, anyway.  So, steeling myself for the inevitable, I went back to my huge spreadsheet and stuck in the new row gauge.

I then looked at the column for my custom size and went 'huh?'  It had barely changed.  All the standard size ones had changed, but my size didn't.  It didn't make any sense.  So, I kept studying it and tracing back my calculations...only to find that I had pointed to the wrong cell for a couple of the length calculations, and it was calculating a length about half of what it should be.  The waist decreases were wrong in the first place, let alone the row gauge being off.

This is where I would have thrown up my hands and walked away, except that when I fixed the calculations, the frequency of decreases it returned not only made more sense, it worked with what I had already done!  My other mistake had literally saved me from having to re-do the waist shaping already completed.

So, sometimes, they work in my favor.  If only I could say the same thing for a couple of other things I've done recently, like get a hot iron too close to an acrylic baby sweater (no, a piece of scrap linen does not work in substitute for a pillowcase), or cutting fabric (me? Cut or sew straight?  Never.  This is why I like yarn craft, you build the fabric, not cut it and attach the pieces into shapes).

And before it's asked, no, I didn't completely ruin the baby sweater with that bit of stupidity.  It's just a bit shiny and slightly different color green (yes, it looks blue in the photo.  It's not; it's green) in the front (because I was trying to get the bands to lay flat, despite the fact that that is why you knit them, but that's another post):

At least my first attempt at colorwork was successful:

So...I can still knit?  Yay!

Why You Should List a Gauge For Your Pattern

I seem to have a knack for finding the patterns that don't give a gauge.  It annoys me.  I usually use the pattern anyway, but it still annoys me.

Granted, this tends to happen on free patterns, so you would think I shouldn't complain.  However, as someone who also has developed free patterns, I know how easy it is to get and list the gauge for most patterns.  Yardage missing?  Sure, that's pretty hard to guess at and you need a ounce scale to properly calculate it (and I know I don't own one of those).  Gauge?  No excuse.  None.  I behove anyone who's releasing a pattern to the world to give the gauge, and here's why (and why it shouldn't be an issue):

1. It allows the user of your pattern to make sure they'll get the same product you did. People knit and crochet differently and have different tension.  That means while you got an adult sized hat using size 6 needles, someone who knits/crochets tighter than you could end up with a child sized hat following the same instructions.  If you don't give a gauge, there's no way for the user to check to make sure they're going to get that adult hat without following your pattern and ending up with disastrous results.


2. It allows to user to adjust the pattern themselves.  Sure, if it's a free pattern, you could be lazy and only give one size.  That's ok; we understand.  But when you do that and don't give a gauge, the user will be left either wondering what to do to adjust for, say, using a different brand of yarn (which will affect gauge even if the same weight) or how to adjust for their particular size (after all, why go through all the work of making it if it's not going to fit right?).  A stubborn yarn crafter like me may reverse-engineer it, but that's asking a lot from your users just to make sure they get what the picture shows.


3. It's not hard to calculate and list.  This is the crux of the above.  Sure, there are many useful details that can be in patterns, but some of them require special equipment or some major calculations.  I understand if you don't want to go through that.  But gauge is not one of them.  You did a swatch and/or created the item you wrote a pattern for, right?  You may have winged it and wrote the pattern later, but that means you have the finished item.  Get a ruler out and measure your gauge.  If you're simply writing the pattern, you either got the gauge from a swatch or you're using a set gauge to calculate out your pattern.  Show you work; list that gauge!  There is no excuse not to know that information.  List it on the damn pattern.

So, yeah, you get what you pay for.  But if you have any ounce of kindness towards those you wish to use your pattern (or don't want a flood of emails from the users), list the gauge.  You should know it, so let your users know it too.  Yes, I know that some items it doesn't matter so much (like, say, blankets), and it's not so bad seeing no gauge listed there.  Still, it'd be nice to let you users know because they may end up with a lap blanket when they were trying to create a full one.  Anything wearable?  List gauge; no excuse.  It's needed. Socks are one of those items.  Hats are too.  Some people have big/small heads or big or small feet than 'average'.  Even if the pattern is 'one size', list gauge.  Give your users the tools they need to make your pattern work for them. It'd make everyone happy in the end.

Learn to Knit Instruction Review: Craft Yarn Council's Learning Center

So, what's a web-savvy person going to do when they wish to learn how to knit or crochet?  Search for instructions on the web, of course!  So, my first set of guides are going to be focused on the result of googling for basic instructional guides on how to knit and how to crochet.

To start, I googled 'learn to knit', and got the below site as the first result (no wonder, as one of it's URLs is 'learntoknit.com').  Though the site covers both knitting and crocheting, since I started with learning to knit, this review will focus on the knitting guide first.

The Guide
Name: Craft Yarn Council's Learning Center
URL: http://www.craftyarncouncil.com/learn-home.html, though both www.learntoknit.com and www.learntocrochet.com resolve to the same page as well.
Contains: Guides on learning how to knit and crochet (along with some generic information about both). For the purposes of this review, we're staying in the Learn section of the site.  They have other instructional pages as well.

Summary
If you want to learn to knit well, run far, far away from this site.  The Craft Yarn Council's instructions for learning to knit breaks almost every rule for a good guide, including having incorrect information.  

Detailed Review
I can't say I've heard of this organization before, but the page you start on makes them seem like a good site to learn from.  If you're really curious, you can click on their About link in the top menu bar and see that they're an organization representing different yarn crafting companies (and the companies are listed). Hm, they sure have the resources to put together a good guide, right?

Which makes me kind of confused as to why their knitting guides aren't good at all, at least content-wise.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Since the first page is just a generic 'welcome to our guide' page, we can go over to the left hand menu list and click 'Getting Started'.  Even though that's the second link, I don't  care so much about 'Knit vs. Crochet', I want to learn to knit.

Doing that gets you to this page.  It's pretty basic and lacking in much detail, but I guess it's good enough for what it is.  It covers the very basics of  yarn weight, crochet hooks, and knitting needles...pretty good information to keep in mind, though it would be better if they mentioned how to match the needle size to the yarn weight.

From here, we can either click a link on the new left-hand menu, which lists all the guides for knitting and crochet.  I'm not 100% thrilled with the mixing of the two crafts, but it's not horrible navigation.  Also, they conveniently give you a link to both the 'Basic Knit Instructions' and 'Basic Crochet Instructions' on the top of this page, for which the first link takes you to the first link on the left hand side.

The title of this page is 'Learn Knit Stitch (Garter Stitch)'.  Which would be fine if they meant that they're going to teach the user the knit stitch in order to produce something in garter stitch.  But that's not the case.  The first sentence on this page states:

"The basic knit instructions below will show you how to cast on and to make a knit stitch, also known as garter stitch."

Um, no.  The knit stitch is not 'also known as the garter stitch'.  Knitting every row on a flat piece of work produces garter stitch.  But so does alternating rows of knitting and purling in the round. It the set of knit and sometimes purl stitches that make garter stitch.  Incorrect information on the first instructional page; not a good sign.

They then state that they're going to use an afghan square pattern to teach you how to cast-on and do the knit stitch.  First, why is the cast-on instructions on the knit stitch page?  It doesn't make navigating for reference easy at all.  As for learning in the framework of a project, I have mixed feelings about this.  On one hand, it is nice to try to get something good out of your first efforts.  On the other hand, trying to have brand-new knitters make something as the first thing they do is a set up for failure to teach and learn, unless the learner can take from the instructions that maybe the first couple of squares they'll do will be practice, and he/she will know to go on after they get a good square.  Also, this doesn't teach towards flexibility in skill.  Not the worst set-up, though.

What I really have an issue with here is the instructions for what you need.  Do they think they'd get useable squares out of a pattern that tells the learning knitter to get whatever worsted weight yarn they feel like and a pair of US8 needles?  This would have been the perfect place to introduce the concept of gauge and different types of fibers.  You could even tell the learner not to worry about it until they wanted to make a good square even.  But whatever.  The learner has the materials, now what?

Let's learn to cast-on!  To do so, let's learn a version of the Knitted Cast-On without telling you it's a version of the Knitted Cast-On.  It's the only cast-on ever, until you need a different one.  Strike two.

Of course, after only teaching the only way to cast on is teaching the only way to do the knit stitch.  Just like the instructions (which aren't bad) for the 'cast-on' used English style, they're teaching English style knit stitch (which, again, the instructions themselves aren't bad).  Without even stating that it's a style.  Why does it seem like all the guides teach English style as 'the' knitting style?  I don't get it.

So the learner gets done with their first row of knitting.  Yay.  Now here comes this lovely gem:

"Now measure your work. It should be about 7" wide. If it is too wide, start over and cast on fewer stitches; if it is too narrow, start over and cast on more stitches."

What?  No!  You NEVER measure a piece of knitting that's that close to the needle unless you're only looking for a rough estimate of width.  Your measurement WILL be wrong because having the stitches on the needle spaces them out differently than in the fabric alone. Who's bright idea was it to put this line in here?  Also, telling someone who just knit their first row to make sure it's the proper width and rip it out and guess how many more or less stitches to put on to get the right width is really, really bad thing to do.  How are they supposed to guess how many more or less stitches to put on?  If you were worried about the width, maybe you should have talked about gauge and had the leaner practice on a swatch, huh?  That way, they would know how many to cast-on in the first place and they would have some practice with knitting already.  But no, they just now have a frustrated leaner constantly ripping out their work because they're too busy guessing things. Hell, you don't ask a experienced knitter to do that if you don't have to.

So anyway, we get past that, knit the square, and get to the binding off instructions (which also aren't knit instructions, but if the cast-on's here, might as well through in the bind-off as well). The instructions are straightforward and detail the most common bind-off.  Unlike cast-on's and knit stitches, I don't really expect guides to cover alternate bind-offs, because they're pretty situation specific, and 9 times out of 10 you'll only need the standard bind-off (I don't even know if it has an actual name).  Acknowledgement of other bind-offs would be nice, but hey, they couldn't even cover any other standard cast-on so that's to be expected.

It also would be nice if there was a link on the bottom of the page that went to the purl page, but nope, got to scroll up to the left-hand menu bar to get there.

The funny thing here is that on this page, they acknowledge that garter stitch is the product of knit stitches instead of the knit stitch itself (by comparing purling every row to it, which, of course, is another way to get garter stitch).  The actual instructions here are simple and, other than maybe numbering the actual steps, is perfectly good.  Other than the fact that, again, they only show English style but call it 'how to purl', but that was to be expected at this point.

The last three pages in this guide cover increases, decreases, and the yarn over.  Unlike the rest of this guide, they're actually decent.  Both the increase and decrease guide covers two different ways of doing so, and even state that there are many other ways, but here are two of them.  The instructions are pretty clear (which is about the only consistently good thing about this guide), and they even mention the idea of the increases/decreases slanting one way or the other. The only issue I see is that on the increase page, the left-hand menu bar disappears, so I have to go back to the last page to get to another page in the guide.

In conclusion, I don't recommend this guide.  Despite no issue with the descriptions of the steps themselves, the guide itself, and especially the knit stitch page, is set up to confuse at best, and frustrate at worse.  There are factual errors and oversimplifications, and a couple of basic topics are not covered (like gauge and matching needle size to yarn size).  It may have some use for a quick 'how do I decrease again' type question, but that kind of information can be found in many places, most likely easier to find than this site.

Learn to X Instruction Review: The Contents of a Good Instructional Guide

Before I start my commencement of posting reviews of knitting and crochet instructional guides, I first want to establish what I look for in such a guide.  After all, it wouldn't be fair to rag on a site I found, or a book used, without stating why I find it so bad.

So, without further ado, I present what a good knitting and/or crochet instructional guide should be.  A good guide:

1) Is clearly written and well organized.

Obviously, one person's opinion of 'clearly written' and 'well organized' will be different than someone else's.  However, truly horrible organization, out-of-order presentation, and incomprehensible  instructions should be pretty obvious as things you don't want your guide to be. A good guide doesn't take the learner forever to find basic information,  gives instructions in simple and concise language (and/or pictures when necessary), and is presented in an order that let's the student build on previous knowledge.

2)  Will at least name the style they are teaching, if not actually presenting the learner with more than one way of doing something.  

I get it, guide writers don't want to confuse people and have a writing deadline.  But I say by just telling people 'this is how you cast on, this is how you knit, this is how you crochet', guide writers are actually doing the learners a disservice.  First off, maybe the person reading the guide will hate the way you're teaching them, but would be more suited for an alternate method.  For example, maybe they're current crocheters learning how to knit, and would be more comfortable knitting Continental style instead of the English style.  If you start by reading some of these guides, you won't have a clue what I just meant by that last sentence, and that's bad. Learners like this, when attempting to use a guide that only presents one way, are more likely to get frustrated and give up.  They can't learn! they'll say, not realizing that there's more than one way to do it.

The other downside with this format is that while the learners may be fine with the one presented method in the beginning, they then may run into issues when they decide to branch out past the stockinette or garter stitch square. What if you need a different cast-on, or another way to start a crochet circle? Someone who was taught 'this is how you do x' is going to be confused when they run into a problem better served by a different method. Someone who at least was informed, if not shown, a different way will be more likely to look for and use the better way.

All in all, I think it's better for a guide to show at least two methods of doing something.  It gives the learner a choice and lets them feel out what is best for them.  If the guide doesn't show more than one method, at least it should tell the learner they're learning, say,  the knitted cast-on, and that this is only one of many ways of doing it.

3) Will present all the basic techniques needed to knit or crochet almost anything

Yes, us more experienced knitters know the beginner's going to be knitting a scarf, and gauge isn't crucial.  This doesn't excuse the guide writer of skipping any mention of gauge, even if it's after teaching the student how to knit a square.  A good guide will teach concepts like gauge from the start, as it'll save heartache when the beginner decides to move on.

4) All the information is correct.

This should be a given. No sympathy for incorrect statements.

Also related: If you teach to a pattern or provide beginner's patterns, make sure they don't have any mistakes in them. A intermediate crocheter like me will realize quickly that there's a mistake.  The beginner's just going to keep following your instructions blindly and will most likely blame the bad result on their inexperience. Mistakes in patterns is another topic, but just make double sure that a teaching pattern is correct.


I think this is the basis of a good learning guide for beginners.  For learning guides for more intermediate skills, I'll say that 1, 2, and 4 are all still relevant, though 2 a little less so (after all, for some of the more advanced techniques there is only one way to do it.  Also, at this point, if you're looking up more advanced techniques, you're going to know to search for another method if you don't like the one you found).  Intermediate guides tend to focus on one technique, and that's fine.  It doesn't excuse unclear explanations, bad websites, not naming the technique (unless you made it up, then say that), and in-factual information.  Now, onto the reviews!

PS: I apologize for the previous post that was here; I click the wrong button and accidentally published my draft.

Distractions and Old Obsessions

I figured that my next post would be the results of the test.  Didn't happen.  I still got one more swatch to do, and then I got to record everything.  I should be done next week.

And why am I not done?  Couple of reasons.  One, I hate swatching, so I'm procrastinating.  Two, I got distracted by a thousand other things.  This post is about those projects.

First off, I spent my week 1)starting the baby sweater (having done all the math for the body of the sweater, at least), 2)realizing my choice of increase sucked and therefore frogging the sweater, 3)restarting it with a new increase, 4)noticing that it looked a little big, measuring it, realizing that it was in fact an inch too big, re-measuring the gauge, realizing that I had had a gauge accident, and therefore frogging the sweater again.

This was followed by an investigation as to why I had had a gauge accident, which was found to be due to my own stupidity.  My swatch didn't lie, in fact the first swatch I did for the baby sweater was at the same gauge I was getting for the sweater itself.  The problem was that I measured it wrong the first time, and therefore every bit of math and planning I did for this pattern was 100% wrong for the size I wanted.  Yeah.  Ripping out 11 rows and having to re-do all the pattern math was not what I was aiming to do this week.

Anyway, having done that, I did get it started again:

And it is in fact the right size this time.  I checked three times.

As well, as I was knitting a garter stitch square, I was thinking about how I really shouldn't be knitting a square for my Log Cabin Afghan, and should really switch the needles back to the Crazy Cable Blanket so I could get some of that done.  Except then another train of thoughts went through my head.  You see, the baby sweater needs to be done by June (as well as the one that still needs buttons. I haven't had any luck with that).  Also, I want to knit up a small shawl using my other skein of Merino Light, and that will also need to be done by June, as I wish to wear it to my brother's bar mitzvah.  Surfing for patterns for that, I realized that I need to get my brother a present.  But what to get him...hm...what did I get for my sisters...oh, shit, I made them crocheted kippot.

This needs some back story.  You see, I originally got interested in pattern design for one reason.  When I was in high school and actually not only considered myself Jewish but was a constant participant in one of the youth groups, I wanted to make myself a kippah. I tried finding a pattern online, but that didn't net me much back in the early 2000's.  I had a vision, and I wanted that.  So, I spent most of my high school years making and trying to come up with a pattern for the perfect kippah.  Two of my best efforts of this ended up going to my sisters for their bat mitzvahs, one of them actually being very good. Unfortunately, I crocheted it as I was watching the Columbia disaster unfold on TV and therefore didn't write down what I did, and never managed to recreate it.  I, after making a bunch of failed efforts, gave up when I went to college.  This left me with a shit-ton of crochet thread that I've, for some reason, always kept around but have not done anything else with.

So guess what made a reappearance recently:

Yay stash.  Anyway, in my time on Raverly, I've noticed that they had a whole category for kippot, so I went and clicked it.  Lots of free, basic knitted and crochet patterns for kippot.  Only one problem.  None of them are for crochet thread.  So, guess what I've been doing today?

I'm once again trying to create a kippah pattern so I can also make my brother a kippah for his bar mitzvah.  In June. Oye.

Of course you may look at the start of that effort and go, 'wait, doesn't that look a little feminine for a boy?' and you would be right.  That's because after my third time starting (and after buying three different sizes of steel crochet hooks...no wonder I sucked at making kippot last time, I didn't even have the right size hook for the yarn!), I got the ripple effect that I had achieved on my only good effort last time I did this.  So I started writing down what I was doing and went with it.  Not that this little side effort hasn't given me an idea of how to make a more standard kippah, but yeah, this isn't for my brother.  Don't know what I'm going to do with it, assuming I get something out of it.  Maybe give it to my mother, since I've never made her one either (when she had her (adult) bat mitzvah, I bought her a kippah).

Now I've started something else, this leave me with four projects in progress (where did my rules go?  Threw them out when I moved, it looks like), two active which need to be done by June, and one that needs to be done by next December (given this is Crazy Cable Blanket, this isn't a sure thing.  I have to get rows done every week to potentially make that deadline).  I also have another project that isn't started that I would like to be done by June (but honestly, if I don't get my shawl it's not the end of the world).  And yarn I just bought for a hat I was hoping on making before winter ended.  And eight done squares and one in progress for a blanket I don't need, but since it's a mindless project, it gets worked on more often than Crazy Cable Blanket does.  Oh, and that swatch for my test. Do you think I've bit off more than I can chew here?