Zebra Striper: April 2008 Archives

Doesn't look like much, does it?  But it's actually the sum total of all my knitting time over the past week and a half.  I have discovered that 336 stitches around is a lot of stitches.  It seems like even more stitches when you are knitting them on 2.5 mm needles.  But, finally, the Zebra Striper dress for Ms. Z has started.  I'm making the 24 month size figuring that that will give me plenty of time to get it done.  After seeing how long it takes me to get around once (even with just basic stockinette) I think giving myself plenty of time was the best choice I could make for the project. 

This pattern starts out with a simple lace motif to make the bottom edge scalloped.  After that, it launches you into the two color work. 

The positive side of having so many stitches in a round is that it gives you plenty of time to memorize stitch motifs and to try out different ways to handle the two color knitting. I spent a lot of time doing things with both yarns in my left hand.  But things just kept getting tangled and it was hard to keep my tension good when I used a lot more of one color on a row than the other color.  Then, suddenly, on the row where there are three green stitches followed by one red stitch repeated throughout the row, something clicked in my brain and I figured out how to knit two color with one color in my left hand and one in my right. Don't ask me what happened or how it happened, but it did (I had a similar experience learning how to use the drop spindle).   I am far from speedy and my technique could still use a lot of work but the breakthrough has been made.  Whatever barrier I had in my brain that was preventing me from doing this has been broken.  Now it's just a matter of continuing on this way and re-enforcing the neural connections involved with letting me knit with both hands at once -- which shouldn't be a problem since I still have quite a few more rounds of 336 stitches with which to practice ahead of me.

Now, hopefully I can apply this two handed stuff to the second Fiesta Foot!  That would make the instep part of the project a whole lot easier!.