[Lesley Silvester]

Someone suggested I look up ravelry website for free patterns and ideas, personally I think that might be dangerous

It is a good idea.  And dangerous too, yes 

Agreed.


I also have daily emails of knitting patterns sent to me. I will never ever knit every pattern I have saved.


Ellie, the bag is very simple if you can pick up stitches with no problem. I only have a photocopy of it but I may be able to scan it and email it to you if you PM me your email address.

[madcat]

Ravelry is the gateway to a whole wonderland of awesome fibre goodness. 

Good luck learning

[Lesley Silvester]

Ellie, I've just opened the Ravelry page and there are several bags you could try right at the beginning.

[RUSTYME]

Not been on the net much for a bit , been busy shifting stuff , in the middle of a bloody heatwave , i don't function in heat !
Well i am totally fu.... er knackered . Completely worn out , and a touch of heatstroke , but not too bad , just feel a bit crap .
Anyway , i have been keeping up with a little bit of knitting each night .  I do an inch or two each night if my hand allows , usually ok .
My aunt gave me a bag of  wool leftovers , all acrylic , but fine to learn on .
My knitting is really quite even now . I seem to be getting the tension nearer to even between knit and purl now .
I am still just doing stocking stitch , but i didn't want to start anything new while i was busy .
Another day of mayhem and things should settle down to normal again , and after a few days i can start some new actions .
I am knitting pretty yellow atm , lots of different colours to do next .
I am well chuffed with how even the knitting looks now . I would happily wear a jumper i had kitted now  .
A few ( lots ) more things to learn yet , but i am well on the way to being able to ' knit ' properly now .

[Louise Gaunt]

That's really good to hear. You will rapidly become an addict!

[Lesley Silvester]

Sounds like he's already got there.    Well done, Russ. Practicing a little each day is the way to go.

[Bionic]

Great news Russ. Its amazing what a bit of practice can do 

[RUSTYME]

Problem !
I decided to try rib tonight , just knit 1 purl 1 . Omfg , my brain is going into meltdown .
All sorts of strange things happened , but i just kept going and now i can cope with k1 , p1 , but it doesn't look like rib!
I have 22 stitches on ( started with 20
, but hey ho ) , and lets say i start a row with a knit stitch . I do the k1 , purl1 all the way along and end with a purl stitch . I then start the next row with a purl stitch , is that right ?
The knitting looks ok , but nothing like a rib , it looks like what i would call ' baby cardigan' stitch . Sort of alternate bobbly bits . I think i must be doing something wrong somewhere .
The way i am doing it means all the purl stitches are above eachother , as are the knit stitches . I was expecting to see a normal rib thing , like on a cuff .
I bring the yarn to the front for the purl stitch , and move it to the back for knit stitch .
I must sound a total div , " move to the front , purl the stitch , move to the back , knit the stitch " , but it means i can remember what stitch i just did !
My brain hurts ! 

[Lesley Silvester]

It sounds like you have ended up with moss stitch because you accidentally increased a stitch and ended up with an odd number first time. The rule with K1, P1 rib (and there are other sorts) is if there is an even number of stitches you start with the same stitch each row and it doesn't matter whether the pattern says start with knit or start with purl. If there is an odd number of stitches, you always start the next row with the opposite to what you started the previous row with, ie if you started row 1 with K1, you start row 2 with P1.  HTH

[RUSTYME]

Briliant Lesley , we have rib !
Not very ribby rib , but rib .
Thanks mate . Just got to sort the tension out now .

[Bionic]

Russ, you really seem to be getting the hang of knitting. Move over Kaffee Fassett there is a new man in town 

[RUSTYME]

Yep things slowly dropping into place .
I can see obvious things i am doing wrong , ie tension , and can slowly correct them .
Getting near the point of being able to actually make an item now .
Casting on can be a bit of a nightmare atm , maybe because i don't do much of it ? But i shall just do an hour or two of it and that should cure any problems .
Apart from that , i can now do rib , well one form of it , stocking stitch , increase and decrease , just casting off to have a go at now , then i will 'av a go' at sumink propa .   

[SallyintNorth]

You are making brilliant progress, Russ.   

And don't forget you have also unwittingly learned to do moss stitch too - that's the one where the rib didn't work out 

[Lesley Silvester]

Briliant Lesley , we have rib !
Not very ribby rib , but rib .
Thanks mate . Just got to sort the tension out now .

Yaaaaaay!!!

I knew you would be able to do it, Russ, if someone just explained it. There are other ribs such as K2, P2 or K2 P1 or K3 P1 and some that are more complicated, for when you get even better at it.
Don't worry about the tension. It will come with practice.

[RUSTYME]

Rib starting to really look like proper rib now .
 Getting the tension a bit tighter now and getting a springy rib .
On the main stocking stitch i am using number 8 needles , on the rib i am using number 10s .
I knit 2" of rib then 2" of stocking stitch , then 2" of rib again and so on .
 The 20 minutes or so of not knowing what i was doing each time i did some knitting , is down to a couple of stitches now  , so things are going in the right direction .