coasting

I've been wanting to use up the leftover yarn from the blanket I blogged about awhile ago and initially thought now would be a good time to finally learn how to knit. Right before Christmas I bought myself a "I taught myself to knit!" kit and as a gift a few weeks later, received a half-year subscription to Creative Knitting magazine. Since then I've made a couple of attempts at mastering the knit and purl but I have to admit - it's a lot harder than I thought it'd be. It's been awhile since I gave it a go, so I forget at exactly what point I get confused, but let's just say I'm stuck at knit. It feels a lot more awkward than I thought it would, I remember that much, and the row kept falling off my needle at some point. Maybe I'm just a one handed kind of crafter. Which is why I returned to crochet to use up this leftover yarn. The only problem is every project I wanted to start involved working in rounds. I know I've done it before, but for the life of me I could not figure out what they meant by working directly into the center ring. I looked at about a half-dozen online tutorials before I finally stumbled across the Dummies page for this particular task, which explained what I was trying to accomplish, step by step, with very clear illustrations. It was incredibly frustrating that I wasn't just picking it up again, but I was determined and spent quite some time to finally crank out one coaster.


What I really want to make, for some mysterious reason, are doilies, but I thought making a few coasters would be a good warm-up. Stay tuned as the crochet/knit drama unfolds over the summer months. I wonder, how many crocheted coasters can I produce during one season of SYTYCD?