A non-technical note on technique and tools

As I said, I'm not an expert. This is not going to be a 'how-to' blog. There must be hundreds of those already, and YouTube has lots of great tutorials. This is just my inexpert two penn'orth on the subject. 


Tools:

The Book

• The book I've been using is Stitch 'n bitch (which I'm sure should have an extra apostrophe, but that's a whole other subject, and is hereafter referred to as The Book) which I chose because a) it was a modest price b) it had good recommendations and c) I mildly chuckled at the title. (The author has also written The Happy Hooker which as a title made me chuckle more, but I don't want to learn to crochet. Yet.)
• Needles: I have only about five pairs: size 6 (never used), bamboo size 4 (because The Book said bamboo needles are ace), size 3.75 (which apparently is a continental size not stocked everywhere, but I just happened to asking about gauge in a yarn shop owned by a Swedish lady), two size 3.5 (I forgot I already had a pair) and my newest (and as yet unused) purchase - circular needles. Does that count as a pair? Ok, six pairs then.
• Other tools: I recently got rather excited in my nearest and not that good really knitting shop and purchased the following: aforementioned circular needles, stitch markers (frankly annoying; even the smallest size keeps catching on my stitches and I've actually found one or two of my daughter's smallest hair bands much easier to use), a crochet hook (as yet unused), a cable needle (as yet also unused; one of the blanket squares I'm planning on doing on commission has cabling - a new skill, rather exciting), a stitch holder (guess what, as yet unused, it looks just like a big safety pin to me) and finally a row counter. It took me far too long to work out that you push it onto the pointy end of the needle and move it all the way along [facepalm]; I've used this loads, although it always seems to be upside down. I felt like a proper knitter after buying all that. Who knows what I'll feel like when I actually use them all?

Gauge:
Now, I know patterns and The Book bang on about gauge, but I am lazy and short of attention span. And I know from my first square that I'm rather a loose knitter. So what I tend to do is just go down half a needle size (or if the pattern calls for size 4, to my continental (yes I am going to italicise every time) 3.75 needles). That seems to suffice just fine. 


Bag:
Apparently a decent knitting bag is A Good Thing to have. I use one of those crappy cloth bags that you get free with either BookStart or in this specific case, Bare Minerals make-up (love it! Give me free samples! Oh right, people actually have to read this blog.. ah well, never mind) and it's not good enough. I need something with sections, and zippy bits and... frankly I've no idea what I need. One day I will find it and then bore even myself to death by writing about it. 


Patterns:
I bloody love Ravelry. It's ace. Oh and Pinterest too - although I've only found one pattern so far that way (bootees; I'll write about that minor disaster crowning achievement tomorrow. Maybe). Just today I have created a subfolder in my bookmarks imaginatively entitled Knitting to save patterns and sites (a lot of free patterns require you to sign up to the websites). Anyway. Ravelry. Brilliant. I subdivide by: has picture (I cannot work out from the pattern alone what something should end up like), knitting (as opposed to crochet) and then FREE. Because I am cheap. There's lots of $1 or so (most links seems to be US) patterns, which of course is very reasonable, but since yarn costs so much I like to economise by using free patterns. RAVELRY!
I print out the patterns usually, or if they're short and easy I write them on a piece of A4, fold it up, throw it in said crappy knitting bag and then it gets all crumpled. Oh and in the days before my row counter I punched a hole using a needle in the paper, which didn't get messy or confusing at all, no siree.


Yarn shops:
Not that many where I live actually, and my nearest John Lewis doesn't stock yarn [wails]. But can I just wholeheartedly recommend Masons in Abingdon, which has a very Grace Brothers feel (except it's all on one floor). Actually, it  reminds me more of the shop in Through the Looking Glass (although that's apparently based on a real shop in Oxford) and, of course, it's not staffed by sheep. But it does have lots of lovely yarns. And wool. I know not all yarn is wool, but it looks like wool, ok? Can't we just call it all wool?