A lesson in crafty terms

This week I got to use some terms that you may not all be familiar with.

First up we have frogging.  This is when you realize that the project you are working on has something wrong with it and you have to rip it out.  Rip-it sounding like ribbit, leads to frogging.  Like when you realize that you've put to many rows on a cuff for a crocheted pair of mittens.  No big deal you just frog back to where you  need to be.  Crochet is worked one loop on a hook at a time so much easier to frog back to certain point sense you don't need to worry about dropping stitches.  Or you can frog when you realize that the hat you are knitting is way too big and you have to frog the whole thing when you are 3/4 of the way done.  This sucks.  A lot.  Knitting takes me longer than crochet so there were hours of work that I just had to rip out.  Which leads to swearing, lots and lots of swearing.

The second word we are learning this week is tinking.  To tink is to knit backwards.  This happens when your brain freezes and you realize that you have worked row 10 of a chart on the restarted hat twice instead of continuing to row 11.  If mistakes are caught quickly tinking is not that bad.  If mistakes are found when doing lacework tinking is an evil spawn of the devil.

The final word for this week is gauge.  This is where you make a test swatch of fabric using your hook or needles and selected yarn for a project.  I did not bother to gauge the hat I am making because it is the third time I have made this hat.  It worked fine with size 8 needles in the past so I thought it'd be fine.  I had forgotten that until very recently I was always knitting through the back of every stitch causing my stitches to be twisted.  That meant that all my projects where much tighter than they would be done the correct way for the pattern (through the front of the stitch.)  I had to go down two needle sizes.  My friend Shelia is the tightest knitter in the world and usually has to go up needle sizes.  Now it appears that I am the loosest knitter I know.  Maybe we could figure out how to combine and be on gauge with the pattern requirements?