Tuesday 29 March 2011

Skill + 1UP – 2KCBWDAY2

Day 2's brief:

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet (can you crochet cable stitches now where you didn’t even know such things existed last year? Have you recently put a foot in the tiled world of entrelac? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or crochet hook this time last year?

I've looked over my last year of projects and I think the thing that stands out the most is that my confidence in my ability to crochet has grown.  My grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was a child (Nanny Tankard died in Nov 1981 when I was 16 and I'm now 45, so that was a few years ago!).  However, other than being able to make treble and double stitches, I never really progressed beyond the 'how to' stage.  In the last year, however - and mostly thanks to Lucy@Attic24 - I've completed three crochet blankets (Summer Garden - no photo - an Easy Ripple and a Granny Stripe using up various balls of DK I had in my stash).  I also used the Granny Stripe  pattern to make a bathmat and now have a Granny Stripe blanket on the hook. Sorry the photos aren't very good - I can't find where I put them on my computer so have linked to my Ravelry pics.






Knitting-wise, I think the main thing I've learned skill-wise is one of tension.  Not in terms of doing test-swatches, but rather using tension to adapt patterns.  I have two daughters and have made each of them a cardigan using the February Lady Sweater pattern, but working out which size of the pattern to knit to fit each of them using DK yarn and 4mm needles instead of the Worsted/Aran-weight yarn the original pattern was knitted in and I did the same for my recently completed purple cardigan, which I made for myself.

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