Learning New Stuff

This is Judy's Magic Cast On! If you have ever wanted to learn how to knit a sock toe up, you simply must click on that link. Even if you don't want to knit toe-up socks, click on it anyway. It's very entertaining. It has everything, clocks, hungry jungle birds, cast-on techniques, you name it. And I did it! My friend Terry showed us how to do it one day and I was like, that's just nuts, yarn going everywhich way, right handedness, (I'm a leftie)and I thought I'll never get it. But I googled it when I got home, watched the little video a couple of times and voila! Now to knit a sock, with my awesome Smooshy yarn from Kristin!

Also here's a look at my current progress on the Swallowtail shawl.
The yarn is so bright, it doesn't photograph well. Either that, or my photography skills just suck. They do. I'm a total newbie. I've got to take a class or something.

Anyway, it's not too hard. The pattern turned out to be not so bad. The symbols on the wrong side only call for one stitch different than a regular purl, and that is the fabulous "purl 5 together"!?! What??? It is almost impossible. If someone out there knows a trick for this, please let me know. It takes me forever to finish a wrong side row! There is swearing involved, stabbing oneself with tiny (but not tiny enough) needle point, and dropping of stitches (gasp!) And I have to admit sometimes I've fudged the darn nubs. That's what they are called. So maybe all my nubs don't have all five stitches in them. It's kind of like me growing up with very little clevage. I survived, I think my nubs will too. It's character building.

Well, I'm going to go knit on a sock for a while and watch the view. I just love it when they all gang up on Elisabeth Hasselback.