stocking stuff-up {advent blogalong day 12}

I love knitting. There’s something so soothing and meditative about. What I do not like, however, is purling. I find it slow and awkward, which to be fair says more about my coordination than it does about the actual act of purling. Most recently, I cast on a new project – a free knit stocking from Bendigo Woollen Mills. The idea is to knit flat then seam, which means every second row would be knit.

Ugh, not for this little black duck, says I. I could totally knit it in the round. Which in theory works fine, until I get to “cast on” stitches. Thats ok. Instead of cast on, I can just KFB. And when I need to “cast on” more stitches, well, I can just KFBF to increase faster.

This afternoon, I was reading the pattern and realised I wasn’t starting from the toe. I was starting from the base. Which absolutely makes sense looking at the direction of the stitches. Where this “toe up” idea came from, I couldn’t tell you. I was far enough along I could try and lay it flat, to test how my circular knitting adjustment was going.

Not well, was the answer. The KFB sections were fine, but the KFBF sections were increasing faster than the underlaying stitch allowed for, leading to some awkward gathering and pulling.

That’s as flat as I could get it. See the unevenness at the top of the knitted piece? the other end with slower increases works just fine, thankfully, so it’s not a lost cause to knit this flat pattern in the round. I’ll just need to adjust those “cast ons”. For this attempt though, it was the end of the road. The yarn is just a cheap acrylic from Spotlight**, so blocking isn’t an option. Off to the frog pond with me!

With the piece now frogged, the question is, do I persevere with in-the-round, or do I attempt to use allll that purling as a way to learn Portuguese Purl, which I’m told is so easy that many patterns are knit inside out using the purl stitch.

I will definitely be switching my needles though – the bamboo was my first “upgrade” and experience with non-metal needles, but after using my interchangeables for so long, going back to the cheap bamboo was hard. Possibly the combo of cheap needle + cheap yarn isn’t helping, but I’m definitely going back to my good KnitPicks** needles for the next cast on!

It’s hard to know what will be the quickest option – Christmas is coming up quickly and I want it done before then. The purl is supposed to be rather quick, but there will also be a learning curve that will slow me down. And circular means no seaming and thus no late stage excuses to not finish. What would you do, if you were me?

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