17x5= ?

I have taken up knitting! (again, kind of)

I did a trial of a pattern whilst on holidays, and I've now redone it properly and I think it worked! The pattern was for boot toppers, although they don't fold over the boot, and are more like legwarmers. 

The pattern I tried was the Lacefield boot toppers by NeekaKnits on Etsy 

So Pretty!

I thought they would go lovely under any of my boots.

I haven't done much knitting since I was small (the mother of one of the students in my primary school was a kick-ass knitter, as were her children, and it some how came about that she gave us classes as part of the school week. You'd knit an arm and a chest and suddenly a whole knitted animal would appear as if from nowhere! I think I have a wedding mouse and a penguin at home somewhere...

Before I was sure that I could get back into it, I didn't want to do my usual forking out loads of money to let it all just sit in a corner, so I bought a cheap '200 knitting questions' book and a cheap ball of wool from the bookshop 'The Works'. I had a couple of pairs of needles that I found in the back of a cupboard in my home house, and of course since then I had gotten the Cath Kidston needles too so I was well set for practice! These are some of my practice stitches from holidays

Think this was moss stitch at the bottom and ribbing on top. I wanted to see if things would turn out as they were supposed to.

And they did! 

In preparation for the holiday I had bought a couple of patterns (including the boot toppers) on Etsy and they were emailed to me in PDF format, which was wonderful as it meant that I could have them with me on my iPhone, and they even popped into my iBooks shelf.

I decided to start the boot toppers, as I understood the method of the pattern, but I didn't know what some of the stitches were.

Wonderfully, a quick look on YouTube has given me all the info I've needed. It's the best resource I've found so far, as I sometimes have problems visualising things from written print.

This is how my first boot topper turned out. I haven't seamed it up, as I was considering ripping it down and use it to make a rounded one because I had made it in too big a size also. I did the pattern on straight single pointed needles on holidays but it should have ideally it been done in the round, so it wouldn't have to be seamed up the back. 

Therefore I purchased a set of double pointed needles on eBay, with 17 sizes and 5 needle in each pack for £15! That's a whole lot of needles. 

And here are they are :) 17 sizes with 5 needles each! They arrived very promptly, bamboo I think, and the only fault that I had was that the points weren't very pointed, and I was worried I would struggle to get into the stitches to knit them, but I managed okay! I may have problems if I ever get really tight stitches though.

I decided to go for double pointed instead of circular, as I want to get up to knitting mittens and socks, and I deducted that you needed double pointed needs for turning heels and doing thumbs. 

Hopefully if I get this knitting malarkey down I can do more handmade presents. I thought that it may reduce present costs but after looking at the price of yarn in John Lewis ( I know, not exactly the cheapest place to go) last night, I may be wrong. 

Eventually I'd love to be able to knit myself cardigans too, saw some beautiful patterns in books last night.

I started the second boot topper in the round (and also a size smaller). 

I looked up videos to get started on the double pointed needles. I found Stephanie Japel for becraftsy very helpful on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8ZNzxnF1t4) 

And I even learned to knit the 'long tail cast on' by rewatching the video, and that wasn't even what she was teaching!

The first row was tricky, but I'm used to it now. You can see I was very careful about my rows, and making sure that I was keeping track. I now know by looking at the stitches whether I have knitted or purled a stitch, and am pretty certain about counting up the rows now.

I was a bit scared to cast it off but I just followed the videos.

And here it is!

I'm pretty please for a first attempt at round knitting! The lace design has come out quite clear, and it looks a lot more complicated and impressive than it actually was! I think a thicker yarn would have made it look even more like the pictures.  I'm looking forward to working with some more high quality yarns, as this ball cost me about £1, but as I said, I wanted to make sure I could do it first! And I'm very surprised at how much you can get out of a ball, I've done two now, and I'm sure there's enough for another two!

I'd love to hear your comments!

Love Emmie x