OK, so here I am with a broken left thumb, my left hand in a splint, and a knit-in at a local yarn shop (LYS) coming up soon. Now what? Ooh, I know! I'll learn to knit English style. I've seen some English knitters who just hold the left needle steady in their left hand. I can do that, right? Having knitted continental style since my Mom taught me to knit in early childhood - I remember knitting a scarf in first grade - this is quite a change for me. Holding yarn in my right hand feels so wrong, so alien, yet I know it's the thing to do to knit English style. Hey, I can do this!
After digging one handed through my yarn stash and knitting needle case, I snag a skein of worsted weight yarn and a pair of needles and off I go to cast on. Turns out, that was easier to type one handed than to actually cast those suckers on the needle. Ouch! OK, so a long tail cast on using my left hand is out of the question and I'm getting impatient, so scrap learning to do a long tail cast on using my right hand. 20 backwards loop cast on stitches later, say about 20 fumble fingered minutes later because I also use my left hand to do a backwards loop cast on, I'm ready to start with the knit stitch, English style. About 20 minutes after that, I finally have a neater row of stitches under my belt, having frogged the first fifty eleventy million wonky stitches until I finished the first row with some passable knit stitches on the needles. My left hand hurts, especially the thumb, so it's time for that nap I always promise myself and never take myself up on.
I manage some not so bad looking rows of garter stitch and I'm starting to feel like the next few weeks won't be so bad after all. Woohoo! Now I can get back to my make-it-up-as-you-go scarf! I'll upload some photos of my splinted hand and my works in progress later.
I'm also helping a friend design some graduation candy bar wrappers for her daughter's high school graduation. I'll share some of the wrappers with you as well.
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