Tea Party with Debbie Bliss

And now for a knitting update.  Drumroll, please....   I have learned how to create button holes & a picot edge!  "How?" you may ask.  Well, let me explain.

For Christmas, my husband got me a knitting magazine.  Bless his heart...

Before I go any further, does anyone else find most knitting magazines to be ridiculous??  Oh my word....  The designs are so tacky & out of date, and the models are so cheesy and badly photographed.  I get really irritated.   The only one I've found to be remotely current is Knit Simple.  And even that one is just okay.....kind of marmish, but has some redeemable qualities, like knitting tutorials & consumer reports.    

But let me tell you about this magazine Alex found for me.  First, it's from the UK which makes it cooler already.  Americans can't seem to branch out in the knitting realm, but leave it to the Brits to pave the way!  I knew they did this with fashion.  Well, of course they're ahead in knitting, too!   Anyways, the publication is called Yarn Forward.  This magazine is full of current info. regarding the knitting world.  Info. like "books we love", "websites", "yarns we love", knitting news, and a wide variety of patterns for all levels (really!).

I fell in love with the feature, "Three Knitted Flowers", and this is where I learned about K2tog, YO (knit two together, yarn over), which is an easy way to create a buttonhole or a lacy edge (picot).   Of course, I learned all this by mistake as I was following the wrong pattern for the flower I really wanted to knit.  And I misunderstood "repeat to end" to mean "keep knitting until you are down to one stitch."  They really just meant knit to the end of that row....  {You knitters  out there know that one doesn't really run low on stitches when decreasing & increasing at the same time.}  Do the math, I was knitting for a long time before I figured out that I had probably misread something.  Instead of a flower, I began knitting a blanket!   But like I said, this is how I learned!  I learned terminology & technique :)  And I was able to go back & fix my knitting & make a flower I didn't even want to make: ta da! 

Now, you may be wondering how this fits with my current Debbie Bliss project, The Garter Stitch Blanket.   It doesn't really.  I just needed a break from all those squares that I am lagging so far behind on.   Although, now that Lily is napping regularly during the day, and sleeping well at night, I sense I may get back to work on that blanket real soon! 

And....being the Debbie Bliss fan that I am, I nearly wet my pants when exploring the blog portion of Yarn Forward's website.   Check it out.....   All I gotta say is, why do I live in Indiana???

PS---if you place your mouse on the blog entry, you will discover the links I've provided you :)