At last, a learning experience that is going to turn out a beautiful, wearable garment. Everything with this hat is new for me from the handling of the yarn to the number of needles involved. (I've made a mental note that whenever I purchase double-pointed needle in the future I must buy 2 sets of 5.) As you can see in the picture 9 needles are involved and no stitch markers. I did transfer the work to magic loop (circular) for a couple rounds but noticed that the curve of the round knitting with the tightness of the twisted stitches makes it very uncomfortable to knit on circular needles unless I used a 60 inch cord and broke the hat up into quarters instead of halves. Imagine the juggling of four pieces of work on a cord using magic loops - Yikes! Transferred back onto it's 8/9 needles, the technique has become quite hypnotic and enjoyable. The top of this hat pattern has been done by many folks and although at this point I plan to "borrow" a fellow knitter's pattern for the sides, I may dream up something of my own by the time I get there. The inside is almost as pretty as the outside although my orange floats are longer than in traditional twined knitting because I've broken up the orange stitches with two gray stitches rather than one. This is so exciting.
As the working yarns twist ever tighter together, I find myself speeding up my knitting in a vain attempt to out-run the coil. The only part of this knitting that isn't enjoyable is the untwisting of these yarns which involves stopping every quarter of the way around the work to secure the skeins and untwist the mess. Every time I take this pause my brain tries to come up with a way to easily, if not automatically, untwist as I work. Something will be figured out - someday.
Because of my current obsession with this traditional Swedish folk craft, I've renewed my library card. I neglect my library because I'm a clean freak and library books are filthier than money in my opinion - for christ sake, people take them to bed! They are a hell of a lot cheaper than money though and the knitting books I want are damned expensive. The friendly folks at the library are now reaching out to other libraries around the country in an effort to secure me a temporary copy of Twined Knitting which has been out of print for many years and has now reached $65.+ on the used book market. This book will help develop my skills and hopefully get me over the fear of creating thumbs on mittens.
Off now to dream of moving to Sweden and knit adorable accessories on a comfy couch for the rest of my life. I think there is a cute man in there somewhere too.
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