Well, I didn't think this was possible, but it appears I have pulled a muscle while knitting. I know, it sounds pathetic, but these things happen (I exercise too!). Knitting injuring occur from the same motion repeated over time without break. A way to avoid knitting injuries is to take a 10 minute break every 30-45 minutes. I haven't been doing that, so the termination of my project will be delayed a few days.

I sometimes knit with long needles and I hold the right needle under my arm, the way I was taught in Spain. Keeping my right elbow bent for long periods wasn't good (obviously because I can hardly move it). The safest way to go is to knit with circular needles, mostly for the ease on your wrists.

My lessons: switch to circular needles only; take breaks every 30-45 minutes (just like with reading), and take care of strained muscles: rest (NO knitting), ice (no more than 15 minutes at a time), stretch, and exercise.

If it wasn't a knitting injury, then I slept on it incorrectly or bumped something, but a knitting injury makes knitting sound all the more dangerous (especially with the long needles, which look like they can stake someone).

I hope you guys enjoy knitting these next few days. I'll be dreaming about it!

Well, I finished the border for my sweater last night. All I have left are the sleeve borders and to sew those pieces on. I must say that I'm very excited. I'm planning to finish it today. It is going to look almost exactly the way it looks in the picture, which is pretty great for my first try. It all goes back to the first lesson I learned: if you follow the pattern directions, you will succeed.

However, I still need help with blocking...let me know if you have any suggestions.

Happy knitting!

This has been by far the most frustrating part! I knit for a reason: seaming and me do NOT get along. The only reason I can knit in a straight line is due to the needles. I'm not good at sewing at all, so seaming scared me before I even attempted it.

In addition to general fear, there are different types of seaming stitches. I chose the one stitch invisible. I knit in the back of the stitch and let one stitch fall between the two fabrics. It started out a little bulgy on the shoulder, which frustrated me a lot. I had to start over twice. The first time was because I accidentally did the whip stitch, even though I was thinking the entire time, "Don't do the whip stitch." The second time I was doing a mix between a half stitch and a full stitch seam. My boyfriend told me that practice was key. Being frustrated, I responded that if I practiced too much, I'd ruin the fabric. Luckily he knows how to deal with me when I'm frustrated. He also suggested ironing or blocking (and he claims to know nothing about knitting, haha), which were both good ideas.

Well, I just pushed through and tried to make it as straight as I could. When I finished the left shoulder, I went ahead and did the left side. At long last (about one hour), I finished. I put the left side on my arm. Before I even looked in the mirror, my boyfriend said that it looked good. I looked. The seams did look straight! (Hallelujah!!) I also made it a size small for the girl I'm knitting it for. I float between a medium and a small, so it looked a little tight, but it's definitely a small--which means my gauge was right! I feel so great right now! After a month of working, everything is turning out. Now I just have to finish the seams, finish the border, and put it on. I think it will be a successful first project :)

Happy knitting!

I have seen beautiful scarves made with Dazzle yarn. They are very open and I've been searching everywhere for a pattern. It turns out that I only needed to look for a stitch, the elongated stitch. You insert the needle as if you were knitting, then you wrap the needle 2-4 times and pull it all through the loop. On the next row, you simply knit through the front loop and let the other wraps fall off. When I try it, I will post a picture.

Happy knitting!

Well, I'm almost done. I've finished the three pieces. I only need to knit the border, but the pattern says to do seaming first. However, every knitting book I've read says that I need to block out the fabric before I stitch it together. Here are the methods:

--Wet Blocking: dampen the fabric, put it on a towel/blocking mat and wait for it to dry. Good for synthetic fibers.

--Steam Blocking: same as wet blocking, except for fibers that aren't supposed to get wet, or cotton.

--Spray Blocking: pin down the fabric and spray and wait to dry. This is good for delicate fabrics.

I am going to use wet blocking. I will let you know how it turns out!

Happy knitting!

Well, reading a pattern can sometimes be tricky. I wish that I had seen the left front of my sweater before completely undoing it. It turns out that I didn't read it incorrectly, but I was looking at the portion incorrectly. So I undid everything and then realized that I hadn't made any mistakes. I thought it started at the button spot, but it actually started at the bottom of the bolero, so I was looking the portion completely wrong.

Lesson: envision the pattern before knitting it; diagrams help; be careful!

Okay, this is how I feel:

The purpose of a Catholic School is indoctrination. I know that sounds bad, but it's true. The purpose of all schooling is indoctrination. Very rarely do you find a religious discussion at a Catholic school, one where the students are encouraged to ask the hard questions with difficult answers. In fact, one of my students asked, "If the Catholic Church is the one true faith, then why were there other religions before it?" The priest's answer? "Do you believe that Christ is the Son of God and in the bodily Resurrection? because that's all that matters." He completely brushed aside the student, probably because he felt that my student wasn't capable of an intellectual discussion.

I had the privilege of attending one of his classes of religion today. After five hours, rather than bring me closer to God/the Church, I wonder if I am even a Catholic. This priest had nothing but negative things to say about Judaism and he had many negative things to say about women. I bit my tongue through much of it. If I didn't have my knitting, I would have called him out on the crap that was spewing out of his mouth. I was tempted to call my grandfather and ask him if the priest even had accurate facts about Judaism, which I doubt. What did the priest have to say about Jews? Only that they refused to believe in the truth of Christ, so they willingly sinned. Frankly, that's bullshit. If the Jews didn't exist, neither would Catholicism. In fact, Catholicism steals many traditions from Judaism. Here's the Cliff's Notes of my class:

--Council of Trent: deems the 600+laws from the Torah unnecessary. In fact, states that the Old Testament isn't necessary because Jesus came and now we have the New Testament.
    --My rebuttal: If the Old Testament is unnecessary, then why do we read a segment at every mass? If it's unnecessary, then why do we teach and believe in the 10 Commandments? If it's unnecessary, then why do we read Isaiah, who prophesied about what to look for in regards to the Messiah? If we didn't have the Old Testament, we'd be missing a good chunk of Christianity. Also, if that council picked and chose what to keep and what to throw away, how did it know that was God's will? Or was it simply convenient for those fallible men...

--4 Gospels: There are inconsistencies in the gospels. However, that's a good thing. It's like if you're a judge and you see four witnesses who tell a story, they planned their story. Also, does it really matter if Jesus performed that miracle at this time or if he even did it? Does that change if you're going to Heaven? No, so inconsistencies don't change that Jesus saved us and it doesn't affect your salvation.
   --My rebuttal: If it's good/okay to have inconsistencies, then why can't we read the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalen, or the Gnostic Gospels or Dead Sea Scrolls? If we read them to develop a better relationship with God, then we should read them. People should have access to all of the hundreds of gospels. Again, if we can pick and choose which inconsistencies are important or irrelevant, how can we know if the New Testament tells the truth at all? There are so many interpretations of the Bible, so there are different religions. So what? We are all simply trying to find the best way to develop a relationship with God. Let us read and figure it out for ourselves.

--Jesus: Jesus didn't write because he wanted men's testimonies.
     --My rebuttal: If Jesus had written, we wouldn't need a Church to tell us how to interpret the Word because we wouldn't be able to argue with it; we would simply be willingly sinful (which most of us are anyway). I responded, in front of the group, that Jesus didn't write because he was too busy. The priest told me I was wrong and gave the above response. I should have told him that the best way to teach was through example, which was what Jesus was doing. He WAS busy! He died in his early 30s, but changed groups of people and performed miracles. He was traveling almost constantly and talking to tons of people. Perhaps Jesus didn't even have the education to write. And as far as the testimonies, well, memory is fallible. I have trouble remembering what I taught for my six different classes just the day before. The gospels were written, at the earliest, 70AD, or about 30 years after Christ. The people came from oral history, which tends to change details for cultures and to exaggerate certain things and cut others to make a story more interesting. So the New Testament could have gone through MANY changes in 30 years. So why are those four gospels still similar? They probably came from brother cultures or from a common storyteller. I believe that many things were changed even before the first edition of each gospel. Does this mean I don't believe in the Bible? No, but it means that if we only interpret the Old Testament as figuratively sometimes, then we should do the same for the New Testament. Read the stories to inspire you to be a good person and to become closer to God. That is all. I lived 14 years as a good person simply by living by the Golden Rule. You don't need an institution to tell you not to be mean.

For all of these reasons, and more, I went home wondering if I even fit in my chosen religion. I still believe in God and I love the saints and the Eucharist; I love how mass forgives you of your sins and reminds you to focus on being good and loving thy neighbor. It DOES make me feel good and it makes me feel closer to God. If anything, I bet that if I went to Seminary school, I would be a better priest than the one I heard speak today (I DO think that the Catholic Church should allow women to become priests).

And that's how I REALLY feel.

After my last post, I was inspired to resume knitting the bolero. However, I was perplexed when the pattern said "dec 1" at the end of the row. Do I ssk or k2tog? After researching a bit, I learned that you normally ssk at the beginning of the row and k2tog at the end of the row. SSK slants to the left and k2tog slants to the right.

That's my mini-lesson of the day.

Happy knitting!

Well, this week has not been so good for knitting. Rather than continue to work on the bolero, I started a shawl. However, I have been so busy at school and at home that I haven't had time to work on either!

I am also hesitant to work on the bolero because the left side/sleeve has more complicated directions and I'm worried about making a mistake. At any rate, I should plunge ahead and continue knitting because if I'm going to make a mistake, better sooner than later.

Tucson has also been freezing lately! It didn't break 40F yesterday. So this is the perfect time to knit. To all Tucsonans without heat and/or water, I'm keeping you in my prayers.