I think I could, I tink I could

Knitting. I'm pretty new to this activity. There might be only two stitches on this craft - knit and purl, but there are certainly many ways to do it to produce all kinds of pretty pattern.

I joined a Dishcloth swap group in which I have to make three dishcloth and send it to someone. I am also getting the same from another someone. So I decided to make this chevron pattern below.

I love the pattern, I did it in blue cotton, but stopped halfway through because it was zig-zagging instead of being square. I tried again in this red yarn above, and guess what, it's doing the same thing. You can see it on the left side of the pattern, it's starting to do it. Ack! Abandone the darn thing already!

So, I made a dishcloth doily instead. The instruction said four needles. Huh? I can barely muddle through two needles, now this thing needs four? I went to a craft store and bought a pair anyway and started casting 8 stitches even onto three needles. Sounds simple? Let's say that it was after I had started and restarted seventeen times! I had to cut the yarn it was worn away from too much handling.

The hardest part of knitting with four needles is the beginning. It's almost like going to the gym to work-out after you've been avoiding it for five years. It's like running uphill when all you've ever done was do a brisk walk, it's like riding your bike up Mount Everest....ok, ok, I am sure you got the picture.

I was never more relieved when I was binding off stitches towards the end. Big, giant sigh of relief. The last row of instructions have something like this,

inc. 1 st in the next st knitway

Since I cannot fathom exactly what that means, I just keep adding one stitch and be done with it. Is that "knit together?" I have no clue. What does it mean anyway? I was used to being told to "yarn over" not to "yarn forward". Do they even mean the same thing?

Anyway, this is my finished dishcloth doily.

I wanted to do this flying geese pattern. However, I just cannot concentrate enough these last few days to counting properly. Counting in knitting is almost as important as breathing. If you can't count worth a shit, then you might as well resign yourself to "tink" instead of knit. Tink is also called frogging. Cute terms, but frustrating as heck. It does keep my mind occupied enough to stop hyperventillating. For some reason, I felt like I've just been bitten by a snake I fed on my table. But I digress. We're talking about knitting here. So here's another pattern I made.