I am knitting up a bag for someone and I want to felt it. I am knitting it with Lamb’s Pride wool and I am knitting in the round. So say I didn’t do a “special” edge and the thing is curling up. When I felt it, will it just uncurl? Also, can I sew a zipper in after I felt it? Or should I pick a different method of closure?

Anyone with felting experience? Anyone?

At lunch today, Porter and I had the following conversation:

me: “Last night I broke my f-ing knitting needle.”
Porter: laughing, “how did you do that?”
me: “Why is it funny?”
porter: “Because in any normal conversation, one wouldn’t expect the phrase ‘Last night I broke my f-ing’ to end with ‘knitting needle’.
me: “Huh. You’re right. I’m a dork.”

So last night I set my knitting down on the bed and went to get a glass of water. I guess when I was getting out of bed, I put pressure on one of the needles with my foot and it snapped. So today, the big A and I went to the knitting store* to get new needles. I am kind of glad that it broke because:

1. I am knitting a purse. The body of the purse is finished and I basically knitted in the round on size 4 needles and then flattened the tube out and sewed it across the bottom. However, when making the flap that I am going to use to keep the purse closed, I didn’t have any size 4 straight needles, so I started using size 5 needles. Then I broke one my size 5 needles. So I got size 4 double point needles at the store today.
2. I think that I don’t know how to purl correctly and my knit stictches look all twisted. So I will frog the flap and start again, using the size 4 needles (so the gauge is the same as the rest of the bag) and I can try and figure out how the hell to purl continental-style.

*The big A in the knitting store was funny. Mostly because I have never seen a man in a knitting store, even Winemonkey waited outside for me the one time he went.

So I am making the kitty hat from the Stich-n-Bitch book and I am ready to put the ears on because I have MASTERED Icording. And I love knitting in the round. But the directions say something like measuring down 3/4 inches from the top and placing the ear a little front of center above the earflap. And then it says, pu12. And yesterday my knitting instructor showed me how to use a crochet needle to pull the loops up through the back of the hat and then put them onto a knitting needle. And so I can get the twelve little loops all in a row (I am assuming that pu 12 means pull 12 loops through), BUT THEN I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!?! Can anyone tell me? I mean, the yarn is now coming from the inside of the hat, so do I break the yarn and then just follow the pattern on the 12 stiches I have pulled through the hat? If so, what do I do with the ends of the 12 pulled through stitches? Do I tie them down? I just don’t get it.

As you can tell, I am a little obsessed with this knitting thing. I am getting ready to move onto a sweater I think. But I am going to need all of the technical assistance I can get.

I just started taking a knitting class. Like crochet, I began trying to teach myself a bunch of times before it actually stuck. And like crochet, recently it just started clicking. And I haven’t been able to stop. Here is a time line of the past 24 hours:

6:00-8:00 pm(last night) - knitting class. Where I learn how to knit and perl (for a tenth time) continental style. During this time, I buy the needles to make the infamous Stich-n-Bitch cat hat. I discover that knitting in the round is like the TOTAL SHIT and I want to never stop going around in circles!

8:00-10:00 pm - Decide that I haven’t gotten enough at the knitting class, so Porter and I head to our local coffee shop to hang out and knit some more. I AM UNSTOPPABLE!

11:00 - 12:00 am - Get home and realize that I have not satisfied my craving for knitting. Proceed to knit myself to sleep.

6:40 am - awoken by some weird-ass dream about espionage. Comence knitting.

8:30 am - realized that I an suppose to be showered and out of the house at this time, but I am neither showered or out of the house yet. Spastically run around, getting shit togother for the day.

9:30 am - arrive in the parking lot on campus and convince myself that I need to sit through the David Duchovny interview on Fresh Air… while… you guessed it… knitting IN THE CAR!

I was a little dissapointed in the Fresh Air interview. First of all, where is Terry Gross? There are lots of other people filling in for her these past few years. And secondly? David - he sounds so boring and blah… sad really.