Increasing and Decreasing

Beginning of a purse.

This afternoon's knitting class covered increasing and decreasing. These are not easy tasks. I made a lot of mistakes practicing, but that's why it's called practice. The exercise we did today created some eyelets. It was familiar because way back when I started a purse that has eyelets. I didn't get very far with that purse, but I definitely made a few rounds and finished at least one set of the eyelets. I don't even think the eyelets are visible in this picture. This pattern is difficult because the yarn is so dark. I have trouble seeing the stitches sometimes when I'm using a darker color of yarn. One of these days I am going to finish this purse pattern. It's in Vogue Knitting on the Go: Bags and Backpacks. I'll probably get back to this purse after I figure out my abandoned socks. There's always something I can work on!

Increasing/decreasing

My project from this afternoon looks interesting. It's nothing, but it just looks interesting. When I say it's nothing; I mean it's nothing. It does not come from a pattern at all. It's just knitting, purling, increasing and decreasing and it has some cute looking eyelets which are very similar to the eyelets not visible in this purse picture. The shape of the practice progress is looking like a face. I feel like it could become a small stuffed animal of some sort. We'll see. Next week's lesson continues the increasing and decreasing and incorporates it into a pattern. I'm going to like having a pattern to follow. Just randomly knitting stitches is OK, but I like to have some direction. The artistic freedom of just experimenting with things isn't so bad either, however. The whole experience is really relaxing for me and surprisingly fulfilling. Who knew!