Well, back to the drawing board . . .

Measured my swatch and discovered that it took all 30 stitches to make the 4", so will do either the moss stitch or the rice stitch. I've now gotten gauge with both of them. Have started my 100 stitch swa . . . er . . . sw . . . sample, that's it! Will post picture when I have enough done to see.

Trying to find the pictures of the kitties too, so can post some of them. After all, doesn't every mom want to show off pictures of her babies?

2nd swatch with picture of Janet's cables

Well, here's the picture of 2nd swatch & the cables Janet has planned for us. I don't like this stitch as well as the moss stitch. Is this too much verticalness (is there such a word), so that it becomes a little monotonous. Well, definitely back to the needles for swatch #3 for moss stitch. Please wish me luck . . . er, ah . . . success with this one.

2nd Swatch

Well, here's my 2nd swatch. I'm using a pattern called Parallelograms II that I found on the net at about.com. I started it on size 5 needles, getting 23 1/2 stitches/4", so switched to size 6. The knits seem to sort of fade into the background with the 6, so guess I'll go back to the 5. The row count appears to be about 32 rows/4", which is 4 rows too many. If necessary, guess I'll have to ask for help from some of the more experienced - or some of the less mathematically challenged - people on the list. They are great about helping if you get stuck.

I'm going to put this photo together with the photos in Part 2 of the insructions, and see how the stitch will fit with the cables. I did draw them out and they look as though they will blend to look pretty good. I'm also going to try a new swatch with the moss stitch to see if I can keep it from skewing using Janet's technique of moving yarn before removing stitch from left needle. (fingers crossed)

Well, swatch is washed and dried and, as expected, still skewed. However, looks as tho there's something else wrong with it. The top and bottom are also crooked, even worse than the sides. Wonder what I did to it and how to fix it.

FLAK Knitalong by Janet Szabo - First Swatch

This first swatch is made from Lion Brand Wool Ease in Oxford Gray. I started the swatch with double moss stitch, but it didn't show up very well, so I switched to the moss stitch Janet is using. Unfortunately my moss stitch sort of skewed funny, so I'm now searching for a filler stitch I like. Already I'm behind. The story of my life - a day late and a dollar short. (grin)

This is one of the first things I crocheted when I got back into crocheting.