Beginner Questions

How-to Questions
1

Ok, so I sucessfully completed my very first scarf! I am so proud of me.

Now, I want to try to make this bag: http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall04/PATTunbiased.html

I have many, many questions about the pattern, please forgive me.

  1. For R2, do I just knit it straight across, or do I knit in front and back of the first and last stitches?
  2. R3 isn’t actually the third row, right? I don’t start the R3 instructions until the piece is 7.5 inches long?
  3. I thought I understood the whole right side, wrong side thing, but now I’ve thoroughly confused myself.
  4. Once I’ve got the four pieces for the body of the bag done, I just sew them together? With regular thread? (Can anyone direct me to a site that tells how to sew? :blush: )

I think that’s it. Geez, I lose at knitting.

Thanks so much for help!
-Sierra

2

I’ve been staring at this and it finally made sense, I think! This pattern wasn’t written out very concisely, or there are spaces missing or something, :thinking: anyways, this is what I think:

Row 1: knit into front and back of first and last stitches
Row 2: knit across

Repeat these two rows until it measures 7.5" along each side.

THEN

Row 3: K2tog, knit to last stitch, knit in front and back of last stitch.
Row 4: knit across

Repeat rows 3 & 4 until longest side measures 12.5".

Does that make it a bit more clear???

Now, with seaming, generally with a knitted item I use the same yarn for seaming (rather than needle and thread) because it coordinates perfectly and because it is very strong and will hold it together. On this page, a ways down under the ‘Finishing’ section are some videos of different seaming techniques:
http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/basic_techniques/misc.php

Mattress stitch, in my opinion, is the best for seaming but I’m not sure if would work exactly the same in this case since the edges you are seaming together are on the diagonal. Hopefully someone else will have tips on that!

Good luck, and don’t be afraid to ask more questions there is always someone here willing to help out! :XX:

3

Oh, thank you so, so much!!

One more quick question. It says “*Row 1(RS): Knit in front and back of first stitch, knit to last stitch, knit in front and back of last stitch. Use small safety pin to mark this as the right side.”

I mark it as the right side before I flip the needle over to start knitting the next row, right?

Thanks again!
-Sierra

4

Row 1 will be your RS row, so before you flip your needles put a little safety pin on that side so you remember which is the RS.

Good luck!!

What yarn are you using??? The yarn in the pattern itself looks very interesting!

5

I’m using the handmade recycled silk yarn from Nepal just like in the pattern. It’s neat. :smiley:
Once again, thank you for figuring out the pattern for me. I just started after I read your post and I’m already up to 10 stitches! Yay!
Oh, one more question. The size 7 needles are for the strap?
-Sierra

6

The pattern doesn’t really specify when to use each needle size, does it??? I’d say that going with the smaller size for the strap would be fine.