Pondering whether I should start a new knitting project. I would be a baby blanket for a friend of mine. (Seeing how a blanket is relatively easy, and my sister has this very cute blanket that made me want to make one.)

A baby blanket would be so much fun to knit, Sahi. Go for it. I've a new pair of socks on my needles right now.

Gah -- weather changed overnight -- sinuses are on the war-path.

*loves youtube*

Purl stitching for beginners. Nice, slow and obvious instructions.

I wouldn't know how to knit a baby blanket without one. :)

They make sense in the abstract, but in reality, I keep getting confused. However, five needles used in knitting socks ... piece of cake!

cyan wrote:

Em wrote:

They make sense in the abstract, but in reality, I keep getting confused. However, five needles used in knitting socks ... piece of cake!

It works exactly the same as 5-needle sock knitting, but without the needle changes.  Instead of the knitting being broken up amongst the needles, it's on one continuous soft cord, which also eliminates the 'gaps' that occur between the double-points.  I use circular needles almost exclusively because it distributes the weight of the piece evenly as you work, which is a very nice feature when working on large pieces.

*agrees* and
Same here- DPNs for smaller items(socks, mitts, hats), circulars for larger items. I even have a set of interchangeable circulars- three needle sizes, three cable lengths, LOVE IT.

I'm making socks, too. Self striping yarn and new bamboo needles(soo tiny. US 1.5, metric 2.5).

heh, my mom's first reaction when I told her about the circular needle was that it might be too difficult for a beginner like myself. But so far so good, I've already done 8 rows, and no problems. Two more rows and I'm going to try purling. *intends to go for a (color-) striped stockinette, with regular knit edges* It's funny I now know almost more English terms for knitting than Dutch terms. (Not really hard, since I hardly know any at all.)

Busily downloading books from the Gutenberg Project site.

not working much overtime but its summer so i have yardwork coming out the wazzoo

between the lawn, the gardens and opeing the swimming pool i have barely any time for beer and barbequeing!!! >:(

I ought to go plant my last tomato. Also, I must remember to buy more strawberry plants tomorrow - I want more edibles on the balcony (instead, there'll be less morning glories. Mostly because I was too lazy to sow any.)

Gah, forgot a password, and now my printer doesn't want to print the form I need to send to request a new one!

It is possible. You just have to make sure you wrap the two different colored strands of yarn 'round each other between the stitches.

Sahi wrote:

Nah, that won't work in this case. I have 6 stitches of black, about 200 of yellow and then another 6 of black. Of course it 'could' work, but it just isn't efficient. I'll just skip the black edge. It was only there to make sure the stockinette wouldn't curl. I'll just make the edge out of yellow as well. (I thought doing it in black would be easier on the counting front.)

You could do selvedge stitch(sounds sophisticated, but it's not, look it up) on the beginnings of the rows so it doesn't curl inwards(towards the purl side). And if you still want to do a black edge, you could crochet it after the blanket's finished.
I made a plaid-sized blanket this winter(in stockinette squares- 30 stitches knit stitch, 30 stitches purl, back row as they appear, alternate to make rows of squares- the pattern is found HERE or on ravelry(there's a link to there, too) ), and the edges kept curling in all directions due to the alternating edges, and I made a crochet border and it looks fine. It's not so hard, really. (okay, I've learned crochet at the same time as knitting, but still. It's not hard at all!)
(If you end up getting an account on ravelry, which is a great pattern/Technique/help-source, I'm dewthing there...;) )