The Ugliest Swatch in the World
This is the site of a girl who can’t knit, which doesn’t make it any different from any of the other sites she’s made over the past eight years. What does make it different is that she’s now trying to learn how to knit, and in this blog, she’s going to document her knitting failures in as much agonizing detail as she can stomach. She will now stop speaking in annoying third person.
This past August, mostly I went to work, came home, and sat around watching episodes of The Greatest American Hero on DVD, but I also knitted the ugliest little practice piece known to personkind. I even kept a record of my folly, and it is as follows:
Day 1
5:34 p.m. – I bought a pair of size 8 needles and some Red Heart variegated purplish yarn the other day, and now I’m going to actually try knitting a swatch.
5:45 p.m. – This makes no sense at all. I have no idea what the diagrams are telling me to do. I can’t do it.
5:47 p.m. – None of these diagrams or videos online make any sense, either.
5:48 p.m. – Okay, I’ve found a video that seems pretty helpful. I can actually see what this person is doing.
5:55 p.m. – The problem is, even if I’m doing something that I think might be right, I can’t tell for sure, because I’m not positive this is the way it’s supposed to look.
6:03 p.m. – Called my mom, as we usually talk after six because of the particulars of our phone plans.
6:15 p.m. – I did not mention the knitting thing. There’s nothing she could have said over the phone that would have helped. And she might have laughed.
6:28 p.m. – I’m going to eat some Sour Cream & Onion Lay’s Ruffles.
6:59 p.m. – I may or may not have cast on 20 stitches.
8:39 p.m. – Mastered the art of holding yarn. I think. Did not master the art of the knit stitch. I have no idea what’s going on in those diagrams. Am overwhelmed by the conviction that I didn’t cast on properly. I think they’re too tight, anyway, so I removed the 20 stitches from the needle. I cast 20 stitches onto two needles, then slipped one needle out. These are looser, but I don’t think I like doing that. And I’m not sure I did it right, anyway. Took ‘em off. I’m going to look at that double cast-on video again.
9:00 p.m. – Or… I could just register on The Knitty™ Coffeeshop, grab a Coke and finish reading A Separate Peace, and get back to the knittingness, um, later…
11:00 p.m. – I did eventually cast on 20 stitches again at some point.
Day 2
Suddenly got the hang of the knit stitch, sort of. Knit two rows, then noticed that there were 22 stitches in my second row. WTF? Ripped it out, then started over. Knit three rows, obsessively counting the number of stitches.
Day 3
Woke up at 3:30 a.m. because I had to go to the bathroom. Realized I had just been dreaming about knitting. Creepy, since I’ve barely done any of it so far. My dream self was knitting with light blue yarn. Sort of a cross between periwinkle and powder blue.
Knit three more rows this evening. There is a mistake in the middle of the last row. I don’t know exactly what it is or how to fix it. I tried to fix it for ages, but it didn’t really work. I tried to follow the instructions in Stitch ‘n’ Bitch for fixing dropped stitches, but I didn’t fix whatever it was. I just made it look slightly less ugly. I’m going to leave it the way it is.
Day 4
Knit eight rows. My swatch looks like crap. Jody and I went to the mall to get some extra-bulky yarn and gigantic needles so I can try the Go-Go Garter Stitch Scarf in SnB. I got some 12-mm needles and Bernat Illusions yarn in Blue Hues and Natural. There were some nicer yarns there that might have knit up fine with the giant needles, but I wanted to use at least two different yarns in it (the pattern in the book uses three) so I can practice, and all the other suitable-weight yarns had so many colours in them that any two of those yarns would clash badly. Then I went to Wal-Mart and got some Red Heart Bright & Lofty in Beach because it is extra-chunky and it was on sale. After I knit sixteen more rows and learn to bind off, I’ll start the scarfage. Eep.
Day 5
Knit twelve rows. I now have twenty-six.
Day 6
“Mother is teaching me to knit. I try but my stitches just get tighter and tighter until I can’t move them off the needles. I had to rip it all out and start over.”
~ Sarah Ellis, A Prairie as Wide as the Sea: The Immigrant Diary of Ivy Weatherall: Milorie, Saskatchewan, 1926 (11-12)
I feel your pain, Ivy.
Here endeth the Swatch Diary, but I assure you that I eventually knit four more rows, bound off, and wove in my yarn ends, leaving me with the ugliest practice piece in all of human history. Holy sugar on a shingle, this is one ugly swatch.
I even took a picture of the other side, because I know no one can possibly get enough of the Ugly Swatch.
The yarn is Red Heart Super Saver Multicolor in Plum Pudding. If looking at these photos is traumatic for you and you want to avoid being reminded of them ever again, avoid this yarn.
I suppose, given the way the Ugly Swatch turned out, it would not surprise anybody to learn that I have not yet started coaxing the Bernat Illusions into a scarf. I have started coaxing the Red Heart Bright & Lofty into scarf form. I call it The Scarf That Time Forgot, for reasons which should be apparent.