Thursday Stitching: Several Beautiful Projects and One Difficult Beginning

Some of the LOLs met Thursday night in the Barnes & Noble coffee shop for our typical stimulating evening of talking and stitching. Becky and Carolyn cross stitched, Amy (a different Amy, not the Amy I’ve mentioned before) tested out a new type of crochet hook, and I knitted, so three top stitching categories were represented. I like it when that happens and we can see different types of beautiful projects taking shape at the same time.

Here’s a show and tell from Thursday:

Becky plans to add some cool buttons (a bunny and some flowers) to this carrot before calling it “done,” but I think it’s already pretty darned cute:

She is currently working away and almost finished stitching this pretty carrot:

Carolyn was working on this:

She was a busy bee on Friday and sent me a photo of the finished product yesterday:

Oh, look at those Christmas-light buttons! I love them!!

Amy had already finished these amigurumi guys, but I forgot to take their picture. She sent me this photo. (Sorry, I couldn't edit it. I don't know why. I stink at technology sometimes.)

Adorable, aren’t they? She’s crocheted several amigurumi, and they are all darling.

I took this cabled scarf to work on:

That is three full repeats of the pattern – only 12 more repeats to go! 

Unfortunately for my scarf’s progress, Amy W’s amigurumi cuties have made me want to try making something equally small and charming. I found a pattern book for little knitted creations the author calls “mochimochi”, so naturally, I just had to start a new project at B&N instead of working on the scarf. I’m not going to tell you what the project is just yet, but my friends thought the photo in the pattern book was funny.

It has been a long time since I have knitted anything small enough to require double-pointed needles, and even longer since I knitted anything so small that I started out on the double-points. My first experience with double-pointed needles was a bottle/can cozy I made for the sole purpose of learning to use the needles, and the thing was fun to knit once I had (finally) figured out how to join the stitches up to make a ring without twisting them and had gotten my tension under control. I have used “dpns” many times since the bottle cozy, but usually only at the top of a hat, which is pretty easy and takes only a few rows. I had forgotten what a pain in the patootski starting off with dpns can be, and my nifty knitted mochimochi starts off with four stitches, then immediately increases very rapidly to make a flat circle. If you are a knitter, you will know what I mean when I say the increases are “knit in the front and back of the stitch” increases in every stitch; if you are not a knitter, please take my word for it that it’s a bummer to do that with only four or eight stitches, with those few stitches divided onto three needles. Once I got a little farther along, say at 8 or 10 stitches on each of the needles, the increases diminished and I had adjusted somewhat to the double-points so I was no longer constantly muttering under my breath – and right about then it was time to leave. Argh!

Thanks to my poor choice of project, it was not as relaxing an evening for me as our meetings usually are and I didn’t hear much of the conversation, but I did at one point hear Carolyn say, “And right there is why I have no desire to learn to knit.” I looked up to see all eyes on me. Bummer. I had to give the fussing a rest and assure her that knitting is very easy and a lot of fun, and I love it – only I'm not good with double-points with so few stitches to start off. I don’t think she believed me, especially since we left before I got far enough along for the needles to stop dropping stitches or stabbing me and for me to stop the agitated mumbling.

Saturday, I went to my fabulous local yarn store and purchased very long circular needles so I can knit my mochimochi using the “magic loop” method. I came home, switched needles, and calmly knitted a few rows. Here’s how my project looks now:

I hope I’ll make quick progress from here on because I can’t wait to see the finished product. If my mochi turns out as perfectly as Amy’s amis always do, I will be tickled pink.