Fräulein Schön macht schöne Sachen: Stocking's fail and Cable-Practice

Failed Stocking-Knit

Summer has been filled with a lot of trips, a long one including a wedding at the Moselle and a birthday party in the Alps in the heart of Switzerland, meeting dear friends and surprisingly, a lot of knitting. I have been knitting as if it was fall or winter, I even tackled my “second sock syndrome” and started a second Norwegian-stocking, so that I can wear them this winter. Maybe due to greater experience, I progressed quite quickly and only after I had finished the heel I realized I had made a mistake and taken the wrong white yarn. The yarn in the new sock was less shiny and slightly less bulky. Admittedly, I must have known all along that something was wrong, the whole new stocking was smaller than the other one, but I couldn’t figure out why. My problem now, I am sure which red yarn to take, but which white yarn I took, I have to figure out by going through my stash. That’s the punishment for never taking notes about my projects. As you can imagine, I needed a break from stocking-knitting for a while. So after this big fail, the second Norwegian stocking still needs to be knit.

However, I haven’t been lazy. For a little boy who will be born in December I knit another Klompelompe Süßer Fratz cardigan. It’s so easy and finished really quickly, that my stocking-trauma was almost forgotten. This time I also managed to sow in the threads and add the buttons the same evening that I finished the cardigan. I think that has never happened before, so I am really proud of myself. Another baby blanket will be knit till December as well, but surfing through Ravelry, I rediscovered my love for cables and started a little collection with cable patterns. I hope you can understand how I fell in love with the Beatnik pattern. Isn’t it gorgeous? I love the name and how it has a 60s vibe, but the cables… They are so cute but they might be a bit challenging as I have never knit anything with that many cables before. What is the first thing a knitter does, when planning a project? Ordering much too much new yarn, ignoring the yarn she has in her stash. And that I did, so exciting and beautiful!

Baby-Cardigan from the Klompelompe-Book

New Yarn - Always Exciting!

The nicest pacckages!

In order to practice knitting cables I decided on trying out another free pattern I had put into my collection, a dishcloth. Ever since I used the knitted cotton dishcloth my friend Amanda has in her home I was planning on making some of my own anyway. The project had many advantages: it’s finished quickly, it has a lot of cables to practice on, it’s useful, little mistakes don’t matter and it’s a nice gift. Also I have tons of cotton in my stash that have been waiting to be used for ages. The last few days I have been knitting dishcloths, finished three, gave away one as a present to my friend Amanda – she had given me the idea after all – and not one of them is without mistake. Such a bummer! I swore to myself to continue knitting them until I finish one perfectly. The problem is not my incompetence of understanding the pattern, it’s the problem of not paying attention. To be honest, I am not sure if practicing the dishcloth pattern will help me with a perfect Beatnik sweater, but I am stubborn. If I say I will manage a dishcloth without errors I will.