Knitted Fingerless Glove For Moi And A Knitted Cowl For Someone With A Tiny Neck

You all know how I struggle with knitting. If sewing is my English Language, then knitting is my second language - Chinese! I won't bore you with tales of my struggle learning Chinese. (It's so hard!)

I really want to get better at knitting and I told myself I would give knitting plenty of attention this year. Since the new year, I've been knitting on and off. I kinda forgot how to knit and purl so I made something very basic to practise the stitches. Who said it's like riding a bike?

Me knitting the glove in front of my messy computer space

For this fingerless glove, I did not create a swatch. To be honest, I've never made swatches before, not even for crochet. It's probably because I've not made anything that needed to fit. So I guesstimate the number of stitches for the glove which is not a good idea really. But I have beginner's luck. Somehow, the glove fits me. I only made one because I live in Singapore and it's too hot to wear such things. So this is just for practice. The glove was made in a flat rectangle and later the sides are seamed together. Oh, I discovered I hate seaming knitted sides.

I'm trying very hard to go beyond something flat and rectangular. I have a few circular knitting needles and I've never learnt to use them. I made this thingy - can I call it an Infinity Scarf? Let's call it a cowl. I used the leftover yarn from the glove on my circular knitting needles. First time doing it in the round! I think I joined correctly. It wasn't quite as hard as I imagined.

The one thing I wondered about as I was knitting this scarf was - what happens when you want to knit something with a huge circumference. Does it mean you have to find a circular needle of that dimension? Since I have no need for a woollen cowl, I made a very small one and Yoko is modelling it.

Yoko is an unfortunate Shibajuku doll which I purchased a year ago and must henceforth live her life modelling my makes. She is a big head doll with extremely tiny neck. Perfect for my imperfect makes. (check out her cat stocking)

It's only the 2nd week of 2018 and I've already made a bit of progress in my knitting. In the past, I often gave up on my knitting projects because I dropped the stitches or made mistakes. Every time I made a mistake, I ripped out everything and started all over again. So tedious. This time round, I tried my best to fix my mistakes. Like if I drop a stitch, I put it back. Sometimes (most times) I put it back wrongly but I carry on. One other big improvement in my knitting is I stopped using my toes to help me grip the yarn. I totally rely on my left hand now. I have a very unenthusiastic left hand but I'm slowly coaxing it to cooperate.

Oh, I discovered there's something called double pointed needles. By discovered, I mean "oh hello, you exist". I haven't quite understood how they work but I will go buy myself some and worry about how to use them later on.

I used less than one skein of this yarn for these two projects. The yarn was already in my knitting stash. I'm not kidding. I have a knitting stash. So happy to use something I own!

So what did you make this year?