Just Create - Dachshund Cuddles Edition

[soc_puppet]

The family dachshund mix was way more cuddly today than I'm used to her being, which is not in any way a complaint. She was invaluable in encouraging me to get another batch of ear/hijab savers made—by sleeping on my lap and looking adorable.

How about you? What are you working on this week? Have you finished anything, or is there something you're working on?

Here's some extra encouragement from Molly the dog for anyone who needs it! She believes in you!

Comments

[siberian_skys]

Are you teaching yourself to knit or is someone teaching you? I've been told more than once that I can teach myself. I'm not so sure about that. I'm intimidated. I've also been told it's easier to teach yourself to crochet. I don't know what to try.

[wolfy_writing]

Teaching myself. I tried looking up a few things, and it's tricky, because I don't like instructional videos, but Wikihow's How to Knit for Beginners seems to work!

[siberian_skys]

That is good to know. Thank you.

[althea_valara]

Hi! Your friendly neighborhood fiber artist here! I do both crafts. I learned to crochet a month before I learned to knit, and took to it very easily. Knitting was a bit more difficult, but I managed that, too. But that's just MY experience. I know people who are expert knitters who can't wrap their heads around crochet. I also know crochet whizzes who are unable to knit although they've tried many times. One is not inherently easier than the other. About the only thing that may be easier is that if you crochet, you may find Continental knitting easier to pick up than English, but even THAT is not true for everyone! I know a gal who crocheted for years but could not get the hang of knitting until she tried English.

Which to try first? I'd go for whichever you're more drawn to, regardless of whether you think it might be easier. You'll have better luck attempting to make something you really, really want, instead of doing something because you think it may be easy. I do not recommend scarves for a first timer, only because they are so LONG it gets tedious. Some knitted patterns I recommend for first timers are knit a bunny from a square and easy fingerless mitts. For crochet, hmm... a basic granny square in one color is not that difficult. Or hey, here's a dead easy pattern for a mug rug.

I can give recommendations of videos if you're the type who learns well from them, but given your intimidation, I think it might be best if you learned in a class or in person from another crafter. That's how I learned both crafts, though with knitting I had to use outside resources (videos and books) to master the purl stitch.

But no matter which method you choose to learn from, I want to encourage you to give the crafts a try! The great thing about fiber arts is that if you make a mistake, you can rip back and try again. It's easier to rip back in crochet, but given it's structure you may need to undo a large amount of stitches to fix the issue (for example, if the error was several rows back, you need to pull out ALL the rows). It's a bit more difficult to rip back in knitting, but in knitting if your mistake is several rows back you can drop down the stitches above the mistake and undo just that column to fix it.

Good luck! I'm cheering you on! And feel free to ask me questions if you have any.

[siberian_skys]

Thank you so much. I'm going to save this and I'll probably take you up on the offer to answer questions. it will probably be awhile. I'm in the process of trying to get the house ready to sell and get moved. I'm in the middle of stressed out and overwhelmed with the whole moving thing. At least I have a roof over my head. I keep telling myself to stop being stressed when I am very lucky.