Always Learning

I made an upsetting discovery this week, that I’ve been knitting (or, rather, purling) wrong for years. Every knit design is made from a foundation of just two stitches, knit and purl, and they are supposed to be basically mirror images of each other. Apparently, on my purl stitch, I’ve been wrapping the yarn the wrong way around the needle. This isn’t a matter of preference or difference in styles, it’s just wrong. It creates a twisted stitch, which is only slightly noticeable in a finished garment but can mess us gauge/tension and cause all sorts of problems with more complex lace stitches. I posted an unrelated question in an online stitching group and several people jumped in to point out that my stitches looked twisted; after some investigation and lots of youtube videos, I confirmed that all my purl stitches were indeed twisted. I’m glad to have figured this out, but also it’s frustrating to have to completely reteach my hands to knit, undoing years worth of muscle memory of the wrong way to try to train my hands to get the stitches right. Lets just say my newest knitting project is getting a SLOW start!

Yes, I’m knitting again, and no, I haven’t finished the never ending cross stitch project from my last post– in fact, I currently have 5 different active projects, all in different mediums! But I have new yarn, new toys, and a new project to share with you today. First, my mom bought me a swift and ball winder for my birthday and I finally got to put them to use this weekend. It makes winding skeins of yarn into usable balls so much easier and less stressful at the start of a project, thanks mom!

And the custom dyed yarn I ordered finally arrived so I’m starting in on my next sweater project. I’ve been wanting to try yarn from this particular seller — Blue Brick Yarn — for *years* and I’m thrilled to finally get to knit a sweater with one of their hand painted gradient colorways. To be totally honest, the color isn’t exactly what I envisioned (I wanted a little more of a burnt orange on the darker end of the gradient, and it’s more of a butterscotch– apologies to the intended recipient whose favorite color is orange!) But it is still an absolutely beautiful gradient in a lovely 100% merino yarn that I’m sooooo excited to work with!

A little explanation for why this yarn is so special. First, gradient yarns are hard. With most dying methods, when you dye a skein of yarn into multiple colors it ends up as a variegated yard, not a gradient (meaning all the colors will mix together throughout the project, either striped or pooled, or sometimes just mottled). Variegated yarn can be really cool for lots of things, but it’s not a gradient in which the yarn gradually shifts from color to color in a kind of ombre over the full length of the project. There are several methods to dye yarn into a gradient, but all of them are tricky and time intensive. Gradients usually come in one big skein or cake, usually just enough for a small shawl. And generally, you can’t combine two skeins or cakes in a single project to make one continuous gradient, and you can’t cut a gradient to make separate sections of a project (like sleeves for a sweater) Making a sweater using a single continuous gradient yarn is nearly impossible, both because of the amount of yarn needed for a sweater and the logistics how sleeves are knit as separate pieces. But The Blue Brick makes gradient sweater kits, with matching gradient skeins cut to the right size for the body of the sweater and the sleeves to follow exactly the same gradient– and that’s what I’ll be doing for this project.

Right off the bat I hit some snags with my gauge, leading to the discovery of the purl stitch error. But now that I’ve figured out my gauge swatch with non-twisted purl stitches I’m getting ready to cast on for my first sweater that will be knit top-down in the round (which, ironically, is almost entirely knit stitches with no opportunity to practice my newly corrected purl stitch!) This sweater will be a 70th birthday present for my wonderful step-mom, already belated but hopefully to be completed before she turns 71. I always make it my goal to learn one new thing in every project; this time I unexpectedly am completely re-learning one of the foundational stitches to knitting itself! And if it goes well… I have ideas brewing in my mind for my first attempt at designing my own sweater pattern (also top down, in the round), and maybe even making my next big project something for myself!

• Featured project: Field Sweater for Robin
• Medium: Knitting
• Pattern: Field Sweater
• Materials: Blue Brick Yarn brand, Frith colorway, Escarpment yarn (DK weight 100% Merino wool)
  • Cost of Materials: $162
• Started March 2025, in progress

#NewProject #BuySmallBusiness #NewToys #WorkInProgress #AlwaysLearning