My Rock Island shawl is in timeout after I had to frog a bunch of rows of the edging.

So I started this

I haven’t gotten too far yet.

A few things:

1.  Tubular cast on.  I cast on using the long-tail cast on approach every chance I get.  I had the option to do that here, but the suggested cast on was the tubular cast on.  I think it’s supposed to have a nice finished look.  I am always intimidated by a new cast on. I balked at first, but then I decided to go for it.

It was no big deal.  At all.  Pretty fun actually, and it does look very nice.

2.  The sweater is navy blue, so when I knit at night, it’s like knitting with my eyes closed.  I should admit to myself that I need to put some reading glasses on and work under a spotlight. The fact that  I can’t see what I am doing half the time when I knit in the evening leads to number 3.

3.  I keep making mistakes despite the fact that this is an easy pattern.  No lace to be found.  It’s a welt stitch (knit two rows, purl two rows, repeat) and a double moss stitch.

So I knitted part of a round that I should have purled.  I figured this out on the next round, so I had to unravel down and fix the stitch to make a purl.  I can not wrap my poor brain around how to fix the unraveled stitch and make it a purl.  I maneuver and re-maneuver, and I just don’t get it.  I always end up making a knit stitch.  Makes me feel like a dummy.

I went to youtube for help and learned one of the most awesome things I have learned in my knitting career:

Turn the knitting to the opposite side and fix it as if it is a knit stitch.  It will then be a purl stitch on the other side.

That’s just pure genius.  It was an exciting and happy moment.  I feel like I should have figured this out on my own.  I really should have.  In any case, it worked and yay!