Casting on

Next to a whole lot of handsewing on the flowers for my quilt I've been spending my de-stressing weekend on some light sewing and a bit of knitting. I finally finished knitting the test piece on needles no. 5 (5 mm) and that's when the math and counting starts. If 10 cm wide is 29 stitches, and you have a hip circumference of 120, you need to set up 12x29 stitches, but if you want a 2 x 2 ribbing it needs to be a number that can be divided by four...

Le argh.

The plan is to knit my first sweater. I remember Steelweaver telling me starting your first chainmailling project by making a whole chainmail shirt is rather ambitious, never mind the 12-in 1 japanese weave I set my mind on, so I guess ambitious projects is kind of my thing. I want to knit a sleeveless, hip-length sweater, possibly with a huge turtleneck that drapes nicely. (Like this sweater, but without the patterning and in stead of setting in sleeves, I plan to pick up a row of stitches at the armscye and do a little ribbing as a "armscye cuff". Do these things have names? I never learned any). I have 10 balls of two-coloured yarn that cost me a whole € 5,-, so it's also more economical to knit one myself. It also gives me brag-rights.

So I found myself setting up 276 stitchs on circular needles. I wanted to try my hand at a rib cable cast on, which makes for a really lovely edge for ribbing which is stretchy enough for a hip-length sweater you might want to sit down in. It's not that hard a method, but since I'm going for a 2x2 rib in stead of the standard "knit one, purl one" I need to focus at least somewhat when casting on. I'm also finding it difficult to see the difference in the stitches I cast on "knit-wise" and those I cast on "purl-wise", so it was a challenge. If you can't make out which stitch to knit where, the point of casting on in a different method is moot, so I skipped on this new casting on method entirely.

The problem I have with casting on is that I usually do the long-tail cast-on method, which is very easy to do. I just have trouble determining how long the long tail should be... I settled for casting on with a long tail, counted my stitches and ended up with nearly 100. I took all the stitches off the needle, made the long tail thrice its original length, and cast on 276 stitches.
Then a lot of counting ensued. I usually count batches of 25 or 50 and set a marker (like a plastic paperclip, but then especially for knitting because we have to keep the marketing people employed), it's not uncommon to mis-count and re-counting 25 stitches is easier than re-counting 276 and ending up with a different number of stitches each time you count.

When I finally could start knitting last night, I joined my stitches in the round and set off into my new project....
...knitting...knitting...
...knitting...
...say, wasn't I supposed to do "knit two, purl two" for a ribbed bottom edge?

I threw the circular needles down and retried my hand this morning. I casted on, using a different method today. The knit cast on is as easy as knitting itself and created a loose edge. Instead of sliding the stitch off your needle, you twist it around and back onto the left-hand needle. By now, I can knit cast on stitches without taking the needles out of the stitches, and it makes for a mesmerising left-right play of yarn.
But then I got to the part where I started knitting, and after my first "knit two, purl two" round I found myself wondering if I had done exactly that... About halfway through my second round I decided to slide everything off the needles again. I can see which stitches are knit and purl, but it seemed a lot like it was "knit three, purl one" every other ten stitches or so. It was a miracle the last two stitches on my needles were 2 purled stitches...

So by now I'm resolved to master the rib cable cast on after all, knit another test piece with differnt yarn, and see if I can figure out which stitches are knitted on and which ones are purled on. And after that, I might finally get around to casting on those 276 stitches for my sweater. Hopefully in time for winter to come (and winter...is coming!).

Don't you just hate knitting projects that are all complicated-like? I like multitasking, which is why I like knitting socks. Everything's super easy and you spend half an hour on turning a heel without distractions and you're good to go watch movies while you're knitting again. After my ribbed bottom (ooh, that sounds nasty) ribbed hem, it's all straight knitting with some decreasing and increasing for about a million rows or so, perfect for working with your hands while you're relaxing.