Long time no knit swatch thingy

So while I was rummaging around for black rubber cord to string my fern pendant on I found this! It’s cotton, probably for crochet, can’t remember what I bought it for, maybe tying up packages? It’s a nice weight, not to small, maybe something you would knit or crochet baby washcloths out of. Anyway, I immediately thought, I can knit with this! Because I’ve had this knitting bug for the last few weeks but I didn’t think I had any yarn. I immediately grabbed some needles and cast on. How crazy is that? For a split second I thought I should really grub around for a book but I decided to wing it and just see what I could remember from the very few times I have knit anything.

So this is the result. I did go to Ravelry part way through because I started to have lots of questions, not about how to do what I was doing but more of the curiosity killed the cat type. While there I figured that it might be okay to learn to knit right needle to left needle (considered backwards by most I think). I was only wondering about this because I hate to purl. Ah, yes, that is why I never really got into knitting. Although after a few rows of knitting backwards I decided that maybe purling wasn’t so bad after all. My left hand is far better at tensioning evenly than my right hand. No surprise, my left hand also has far better rhythm on the piano or playing percussion. I don’t know why but it’s a very good thing for a pianist, if one of your hands is going to be worse than the other I mean. You’d much rather your left hand have better rhythm, but I digress.

I also think that I cast on using the long tail method, can you tell, knitting people? I really have no idea, I just did what my hands wanted to do. I’m not good with remember the names of stitches but I think besides the plain knit and purl sections there is also seed stitch?, stockinette?, and 3×2 rib which is rather hard to make out.

So the other thing I figured out is that I think I knit Continental style which means I hold the yarn in my left hand. I tried holding it in my right hand, that was pretty well impossible. I couldn’t really wrap my brain around that so I decided not to try tonight. But I am curious because I’m sure that there would be instances where you want to know different methods just to have different options, if I get that far.

So if my knitting friends are reading, bring it on! You know you want to tell me what yarn to buy, what pattern to try, what your favorite knitting style is, etc. and probably more things I have no clue about. I finally figured out what LYS stands for. Local Yarn Shop for you other non-knitting types. ;)

I was going to just rip this out but then I decided that it was kind of cute and I might be sorry since this is one of the more enjoyable pieces of knitting I’ve ever done. So bottom up the way it was knit it looks like a house since I decided to try decreasing there at the end when I was running out of steam. But turned over it looks like an overgrown patch pocket. I thought that was kind of cute. Maybe I can turn it into something.