(or “If you don’t succeed, try, try again!”)
So I finished the first Musselburgh hat of my knitting experience. Version 1.0. The provisional cast-on was NOT a good idea. The video I accessed only served to confuse my poor senior brain. So I just cast on the total number of stitches needed to knit the ‘body’ of the hat with the intention of picking up stitches to finish the crown after I had finished the second half of the hat.
I learned that picking up stitches from a non-provisional cast-on is a pain in the gluteus maximus! (I’m trying to be delicate here!) I was trying so hard to avoid using double-point needles that I ended up wanting to chuck the whole project. I would have, too, if I hadn’t spent three weeks working the seemingly endless stockinette sections. Even with the gorgeous sparkly variegated yarn, I thought that part was never going to end!
I did use double points to finish that second half. I used double points to finish the first half, after I gritted my teeth and used a tiny crochet hook (fingering weight yarn needs a tiny hook) to pick up stitches. NOT recommended!
Never again! Yeah, famous last words…
After sufficient recovery time and working on a completely different project, I found two beautiful yarns for another Musselburgh. And I found a different video that really explained the Magic Loop method in a sufficiently simple (read “remedial”) way that my old and tired brain could understand. No double points. No provisional cast-on or picking up stitches. Here is the video: https://youtu.be/a1WmdJ_9OnA?si=FaYebDGsctzxphYy
Magic Loop is NOT for the absent-minded!
I learned that the reason I disliked the magic loop method so much was because I tended to omit a very important step: pulling the working needle through the stitches so that, in essence, there are TWO loops! Duh!
Now, having reminded myself every single time I switched from one needle to the second needle to pull up the needle with the working yarn, I think I may have the hang of this Magic Loop thing.
Geez, I hope those words don’t bite me in the gluteus maximus!
Happy knitting!
Anita