Dichroic Reflections

learning fast

The beauty part of being a fairly new knitter is that you learn loads of new things on each project. I've just gotten to the point of dropping my first stitch on Clapotis (last night-yay!) and so far I've learned a bunch:

• Choosing yarn: when you're using a yarn like Noro Silk Garden, which has very long sections of each color, when you buy the yarn try to find pick out balls such that each one starts with the color the last one ends in. (I didn't, so some of my color changes may be a little abrupt.)
• Splicing breaks: I don't think I knit all that tightly, but this yarn breaks all the time (about 6 times in the first ball - some colors seem to be more fragile than others.) Thank goodness I'd read about spit-splicing on the Knitlist or I'd have wasted a lot of yarn. I don't think spit-splicing would work on all yarns, but it worked so well on this one that I used it to start a new ball, too, so I won't have any loose ends. You can use water instead of spit if you're squeamish. You just get both ends really wet, overlap an inch or two, and rub them together quickly in your palms. In other words, you're essentially spinning the two pieces of yarn together into one attached piece.
• Counters: For me at least, a clicker counter works much better than the kind you have to turn to up the count. I'm more likely to remember to hit it at the end of each row, probably because it's more fun to use.
• Stitch markers: Those first stitch markers that I bought from Michael's, the plain rings that I didn't like because they're too small for larger needles and can't be removed in the middle of a row, turn out to be much better for this project than the plastic safety-pin sort of things or the beaded ones I made from memory wire. I am using the plastic ones to mark every 12th row, though, so I know how many repeats I'm up to. The lesson for me was that different kinds of counters work better in different applications. (It may be obvious, but it wasn't to me, until now.)
• Yarn-Overs: I saw someone else asking about this on the Knitlist just today. Apparently YO in a pattern may or may not count as a stitch. I've seen it where it meant to wind the yarn around the needle and knit 1, but in this case (I figured out from counting stitches) it just meant to wrap the yarn around then do whatever it called for next. Or for all I know, maybe it never implies taking the next stitch, but sometimes you can't tell (for instance, if a pattern says "YO and k to next marker") and as I say, I'm clearly not the only one confused.

So that's what I've learned in school today while knitting Clapotis, and I suspect I'll know more before I'm done.

If you're wondering, I'm not writing about rowing because I'm not doing it much, though we did go out one day last week. Not only is there my retirement issue to consider, but the lake is closed. We've gotten so much rain that they've lowered the dam to let the Rio Salado flow as a river, for the very first time since the lake was created, about 5 years ago now. This is a very good thing for this drought-ridden state.

I am flying a bit, or trying to - yesterday I was supposed to do a cross-country to our airpark property, but ater much struggling with the planning I had to cancel due to weather. That is, it was a perfectly nice day for most purposes, but there were warnings of mountain obscuration. 8000-foot overcast cloud ceilings are not a good thing when you need to fly at 9500 feet to avoid mountains. I'll try it again this Saturday, weather permitting, which right now it's not forecast to do.