By Jove...

I think I've got it!

There was a nice surprise on my blog this morning - a comment by Adrienne Martini, the author of Sweater Quest, which I wrote about in yesterday's blog post.  She said, "Keep at it. You'll get it!"

I squeed.

I then e-mailed her to ask how she found the blog (and only squeed a little bit in my e-mail to her).  She replied and let me know she sometimes Googles "Sweater Quest" to see what's out there, and that's how she found me.  How cool is that?!?

So, armed with encouragement from such a great author and knitter, I read another chapter or so of her book, and I knit a few more rows.  There was no swearing, so I decided to look up how to purl.

The purl stitch is much easier than the knit stitch.  I picked that one up almost right away.  Then I alternated rows of knit with rows of purl, which I knew would give that "look of knitting" (also called the stockinette stitch).

I kept it up while we watched the season premiere of "Castle" (which we've recently started watching - primarily because of Nathan Fillion and our love of "Firefly") and the series premiere of "Lone Star".  Yes, I know they aired earlier this week.  I couldn't tell you when.  This is why we have DVRs in nearly every room of the house.  TiVo really has revolutionized the way I watch TV.

So, between 5:00 and 8:00 (minus time for eating the wonderful ham dinner my husband cooked), I added a considerable chunk to my test piece, and I think it looks nice:

For all my non-knitters out there, that's all the "V" lookin' rows.

I also joined Ravelry today (I'm taotte, in case you want to be friends there) and have looked through free patterns of bags to use some yarn I bought at a local yarn store when I thought I was going to teach a crochet class there.  Crochet class is out, but a new knit bag is in my future!

Yes, I should be doing something simple like a dishcloth, but as frequent readers of my blog can attest to, I never do anything simple.  The pattern I chose is pretty easy, though - I know my limits!