I decided to sit down with the Welcome and Instruction packets for Level 2 and make out a project plan. It's eight pages long, and written down like that, looks daunting. But I figure that step-by-step I can do this.
This time I put together the binder before even picking up needles to knit. I set up the dividers and I created swatch pages. I cleaned up the references from last time and made room for everything I need. I found references for the history report, decided which four book reports I'm going to do and chose a pattern for the vest. The idea is that now I'll be able to fill up the binder as I go, and when I finish the last piece, the binder will be done --- no assembly required.
Part of my project plan, as far as the swatches go, is to consult three reference sources for each and then knit two practice swatches before knitting the final swatch. This approach seemed to work well for Swatch #1, "The Stockinette Seam." Knitting the two practice swatches gave me a feeling of freedom and allowed me to make some mistakes before feeling like I was committed. I even ended up pulling out the seam on the final swatch and re-seaming, but by that time I had a good feeling that I knew what I was doing.
A trick I did to keep track of stitches on both sides of the seam was to weave a thin strand of yarn up and down through the ladders on the side of each selvedge. If the strand was woven under a ladder I picked up on one side, then I would pick up a ladder on the other side with the strand woven under it. If the strand was on top of a ladder on one side, then I would pick up a ladder with the strand on top of it on the other side.
Swatch #1 was a good experience. On to swatch #2!
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| Swatch #1 before blocking |
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