Friday, November 18, 2005

Harry Potter and the Cast on of Confusion

Well, I finally did it. I started the HP Prisoner of Azkaban scarf for my nephew. I had to go to my LYS to have Vanessa show me the provisional cast-on, as that was the only thing holding me back. Turns out, the directions in "Knitting Without Tears" just plain suck. Why not just say it's just like the long-tail cast-on but with two different yarns and hold the waste yarn over your thumb? Geez, I felt like an idiot once we figured out what Ms. Zimmerman was trying to get at. But it's started. I'm on the 12th row. Only what, 509 to go? Yay. It's going much faster than I thought it would, what with it being 90 stitches in the round, on top of being my first project on circular needles. But it's started! And yay for Charlotte Yarn being open until 7pm on a Thursday! And double yay for being located next to my favorite pub. I popped over there after 26 cast on loops and finished up the remaining 64 whilst quaffing my favorite beer right at the bar. Heh. Yup, KIP at a bar. I'm so cool.

2 comments:

Elisabeth Lincoln said...

I just figured out the provisional cast-on too. :-) I used the Knitters Handbook and It took me a little while to get it, felt pretty silly.

Anonymous said...

I posted this over on my blog today in response to your comment, but I wanted to make sure you saw it. It's about my Ravenclaw scarf.

"Well, to be honest, I didn't check my gauge, but I believe the pattern says it's something like nine inches wide. I know a lot of folks stop at 11 repeats of the trapped bar, but I figured I'd go for the full nine yards (or eight feet, as the case may be). It was LOVELY last night at the midnight showing, though. Temperatures here dropped down to freezing, and it was large enough to drape over whatever part of me was cold. At one point it was a hood, even."

And, actually, I didn't do a provisional cast-on. The fringe keeps the bottom edge closed, and I grafted the top edge, mostly for practice since it won't be seen under the fringe.

Hope this helps. And I will warn that it's very...meditative...knitting. I actually did a lot of it in classes, since I didn't have to even look at it except when switching colors. Good luck with yours!