The Road to Cast-On

Let me say in advance to please forgive some of my photos from today. I am much better behind the camera than in front of it and am still learning how to work my new remote control to the camera.

So, you all already know about my decision to start the knit-a-long and why, I won't bore you with going over that again. What went into my decision for my project is that I wanted to use this yarn:

as I really am trying to knit from my stash so that I can get new yarns (and I have two new motivations to do that as compared to the beginning of the year - this KAL and the potential to go to a fiber arts festival in October)

I also decided to do this as close to correctly as possible and swatched for my pattern:



Mostly so that I could learn to attempt to get gauge.

And today I was able to sit down with that washed and well dried swatch (try it dried for two weeks before I measured after washing gauge.
Now, many people will tell you that you can't truly block an acrylic. I will tell you that you may not get the same results with acrylic but you'll get the stitches to work properly into place and it to lay right after washing and blocking. I've never worked with other fibers (something I plan to remedy later this year) but for a first time washing and blocking anything and paying attention to it, I found that it did make my swatch lay better and it did change the gauge enough to make me choose a different needle size.

Then I measured out for my tail (see my previously posted tips), as I greatly prefer the long-tail cast on and my pattern: Convertible doesn't specify which to use.

It felt good to get started on this project that I've been looking forward to:
And now we have a successful cast on shown before I pull out the second needle:
And after I've pulled out that needle:
The stitches look too big, but trust me, they will be perfect and look beautiful at the end of my project. I've used the same method in my gifts to others and you would never know it.

And finally, here we are with two knitted rows:


I'm going to spend some more time knitting on this today and will have progress to show you all next week.

Happy Knitting everyone!