Thursday, June 30, 2005

Fighting with dpns

I started the French Market bag last night & anybody watching would have been laughing. I've only ever used dpns before for the i-cord (on my first felted bag - see 'Secret Project et al' in May 2005 archives) bind-off & handles. I was working with the black Jamiesons Chunky shetland - 8 stitches over 4 dpns.

Well what a farce - the needles kept falling out, I couldn't work out how to divide the stitches etc. But I got there in the end & here's my progress tonight:

French Market bag
base of French Market bag


I am now up to 20 stitches per needle - the
pattern calls to move to circulars once you've got 50 on each needle - I
don't think I'll be able to cope with that many so will move sooner. It's lovely to knit with & so quick compared with the awful cardigan.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could you not work it using longer dpns or over 5/6 dpns?

blueadt said...

I've only got one set of 8mm dpns & don't want to buy any more. I've got 5 needles but am using the 5th to shift stitches on to. The kids were fascinated tonight as I knitted whilst DD was swimming.

scarletprincess said...

I first used dpns to knit a first sock! Oh the fun I had with it, but it gets easier... not a great fan but its hilarious to see the expression of onlookers!
Looks great so far!
fi x

Anonymous said...

My mum, who taught me how to knit was amazed when she saw me knitting with dpns once. They can be very fiddly and we're quite unfortunate here in the UK, it's difficult to get hold of the larger sized dpns in the shops. Wishing you all the best of luck with your progress though!

Anonymous said...

I really fancy knitting that bag too so I'll be watching with anticpation to see how you get on. I've only just started knitting on DPNs too for my first sock. Its hard at first but I quite like it now ;)

Anonymous said...

I'm not really a fan of DPN'S but I do find it helps loads if you alternate the spot where you change needles on each round. I.E Knit alll the stitches from one needle then one from the next needle THEN swap to using the free needle. If you do this the point at which you are swapping needles shifts by one stitch on each round and you dont get that annoying ladder effect going on.

C x

blueadt said...

Hi

Thanks for all the comments.

C - I've found something similiar. I've been knitting the first two stitches of the next pin onto the last pin & then transfering them onto the empty (5th pin) to avoid a gap or ladder. I'm then knitting it's partners onto that pin & so on. Thanks for the tip - I might try to vary the amount rather than always doing two.