Last month, I cast on for a really beautiful stranded colorwork project (the Xanadu Snowflake Cowl by Julie Crawford ) using a buttery sock cashmere yarn from Bijou Basin Ranch. Having knit several colorwork projects before, I really thought this would be a piece of cake, but I ended up struggling with it quite a bit at first, and progress was frustratingly slow until just recently. I think my main issue was that I had taken a fairly long break from stranded colorwork, and I was sorely out of practice. I couldn't quite get into the rhythm of the project, and I also wasn't able to spot mistakes until I had knit several stitches (and sometimes even rows ahead), which made for a lot of frogging and maybe even some cursing here and there. But I stuck with it, and the more I kept working at it, the easier it got. And once I started getting the hang of the chart and working with the two yarns, things moved along just a little bit quicker. I also have three little "tricks...
compulsive craftiness in the midwest - knitting, crocheting, handspinning, cross stitch, quilting & more.