Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Am I crazy?



I mean, outside of the overt "yarn in the dishwasher" kind of crazy.

Here's why I'm suspect:

I hate ribbing. I mean, I love the way it looks, but omg it's so slow. So slow. I've been thinking about the Kathmandu aran tweed and how I want to make a fairly quick sweater -- I was thinking stockinette, but you know, ribbing might just be too smooshy to pass up.

What's holding me back is that I'm so !! slow at ribbing (it's like seed stitch: I lovelovelove it, but I cringe when I think about how long it takes), so what if I knit maybe half an inch in ribbing, then switch to stockinette, and then when I get to the arm shaping I...

(brace for potential crazy)

drop the stitches that should be purled and pick them up so they're correct for ribbing?

Maybe I'm just forgetting how long picking up stitches takes, but it seems kind of preferable to ribbing a whole sweater.

On the other hand, maybe ribbing a(nother) whole sweater would build character and make me faster for the future. Or maybe it just wouldn't get finished.

5 comments:

Elinor said...

Nah, you need to learn Norwegian purl. If you use this purl method with Continental knitting, ribbing will fly by. Google it for a tutorial!

Emily said...

!! That's crazy! I'm definitely trying it next time I have ribbing.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I still cannot see your links, maybe I can grey/pink color blind

anywho, knitting combined has greatly improved my knit/purl speed with regards to ribbing, mostly because the knits and purls sit differently on the needle so it's easier to identify which one you're going to do next.

You could drop the stitches and ladder them back up, but that might create some tension issues. Laddering up a lot of stitches looks funny to me.

Anonymous said...

Just rib. I would vote for continental or combined if you do neither. But tension as Amy said would be a concern with laddering. Also lots of potential for frustration.

elizabeth said...

You could do a rib with twisted knit stitches, that might go faster. Just a thought.