Last post of Knit/Crochet blog week.

Crafting Balance 
Are you a knitter or a crocheter, or are you a bit of both? If you are monogamous in your yarn-based crafting, is it because you do not enjoy the other craft or have you simply never given yourself the push to learn it? Is it because the items that you best enjoy crafting are more suited to the needles or the hook? Do you plan on ever trying to take up and fully learn the other craft? If you are equally comfortable knitting as you are crocheting, how do you balance both crafts? Do you always have projects of each on the go, or do you go through periods of favouring one over the other? How did you come to learn and love your craft(s)?

For me it's not about balancing one craft over another.  It's about knowing what my carpal tunnel hands can and can't do.  I found knitting looms at the craft store about 5 years ago and they sat in a closet until the next summer.  That summer I got a pretty bad case of mononucleosis and I couldn't read....or do much of anything else for quite a while.  I remembered I had the looms, pulled them out and learned how to use them.

I was and am hooked.  I learned ways to hold both the pick and the looms so that I don't stress out my hands.  I made more hats and scarves than I can count before I learned to do more.   I have what seems like an ever growing collection of knitting looms.  I have learned over the years that I can't work comfortably with the fine gauge looms and that I don't like the look of the fabric using the larger gauge looms.   I guess I'm expecting what I make to look nice now rather than just being happy to be creating something.

Knit/Crochet Blog week is over and I don't think I've posted a photo of something I've knit yet!  I'll post an early project and a current one.   If you want to read blogs by other knitters and crocheters copy the tag/label from one of the posts and paste it into a search.  I just did day 6 and got 3800 hits!  I don't know how many of those go to the same blog but there sure are a lot of people writing about these topics this last week!

Earlier Project:

I don't have photos of many of my older projects.  As far as my skills go this was a couple years in and this little cord holder is pretty much the same construction as a loom knit hat.

Current Project:

This is a pinwheel blanket.  It will be close to being a circle when it is finished and will have a decorative edging.   If I can get it finished in the next week it will go into the school raffle.  The photo doesn't show the colors well.  Our school colors are purple, white, and teal.   The striped wedges have quite a bit of teal color along with the purples and greens.  If it's not done it can go onto the shelf for next year or be gifted at some point down the road.

As far as new skills.  I've done short row shaping before but I've avoided seams.  This one has a seam for the last wedge and the edging is seamed on.

K/C Blog Week, Day 6 Skill Set.

How far down the road to learning your craft do you believe yourself to be? Are you comfortable with what you know or are you always striving to learn new skills and add to your knowledge base? Take a look at a few knitting or crochet books and have a look at some of the skills mentioned in the patterns. Can you start your amigurumi pieces with a magic circle, have you ever tried double knitting, how’s your intarsia? If you are feeling brave, make a list of some of the skills which you have not yet tried but would like to have a go at, and perhaps even set yourself a deadline of when you’d like to have tried them by.

I don't have a list of loom knitting skills that I want to master.  I have a few things I'm not interesting in doing like cables, socks, and toys.  They don't draw my interest.

I have progressed from hats and scarves with simple patterns to hats and scarves with interesting patterns.  I have knit some lace and learned to do short rows.  I am more confident that when I see something I want to try I'll be able to do it.   I can still get frustrated.  Sometimes I don't understand the construction of a piece and would like to.  Other times it's not me, it's the pattern that's not written very well.   Sometimes a designer assumes we all know what she knows and, well, that's not true.

All in all I think I'm solidly intermediate in my loom knitting skills.