Let’s see, time for some math here.

I was supposed to start my Knitting Love on February 14th. It is now the 23rd. That makes today Day 10.

At 1/2 an hour a day that would have been 5 hours of knitting.  I spent 2 hours knitting on Saturday. So that means I have 3 hours of knitting to do to catch up.

There is no way I am going to knit for 3 hours today.  Instead I am going to attempt an hour of knitting each day for the next six days, starting today. Considering how slowly I knit that may be a better plan for getting much of anything done.

So onto the next bit of knitting.

I was casting on  too tightly last Saturday.  Some of my stitching buds suggested that I might want to use a larger needle to cast on initially, then move the stitches to the needles I want to use for the project.  Since I didn’t have my larger needles with me at PJ Jam, I decided to give this idea a try today.

I’m knitting on size 7 needles, so I figure I need some size 8s for my cast-on.  Hmmm, no size 8 regular straight needles in my paltry collection.

Ah ha! I do have some size 8 dpns. I don’t know why I have Size 8 dpns (in fact 2 sets), it is one of the many mysteries of my strange stash of hooks, needles and other yarn wrangling paraphernalia. Anywho. They should do the trick for casting on 20 stitches to start my project.

Well so much for that idea. Didn’t really make my stitches any looser and when I moved them to the smaller needle I messed up. Pull that off and try again.

This time I succeeded by making myself cast-on loosely to my Size 7 needle. Worked great.  I knit one row and managed to keep the right stitch count.  Though I’m not sure what is happening over here on my right hand needle?  At least I can straighten it out and keep going.

Very interesting, 3 rows knit and I somehow added an extra stitch. Oh well, going to keep on working.

Knit 2 of the stitches together to get back to my original 20. Decided at this point in the game I need to count my stitches at least at the end of every row.

An hour of knitting and here is Swatch #2.  20 stitches and 12 rows of garter stitch.  An improvement over Swatch #1 for consistency of stitching, though still some boo-boos here and there.

I think I may be switching to a different yarn for the future swatches. This stuff is lovely, but has a rather loose twist and I keep splitting it with the points of my needles. Not an issue as much I’m sure for more experienced knitters, but is making me cranky as an inexperienced knitter.