The Susan Guagliumi Crafsty/bluprint machine knitting classes and some classes at the Knitting School in Seattle got me through this project.

Looking back at my old notes, I see how clueless I was about this project.

Now I know how to do twisted stitches correctly, how to use my ribber when making cables, and how to read my knitting better. The garter bar and I still aren’t best friends, but with my practice, I hope things will get better.

I have done my best to make yarn substitutions where possible.

• Yarn A: Noro Silk Garden 430 Message in a Bottle. I do not like this yarn at all.
• Yarn B:Malabrigo Rios Candombe
• Yarn C: Madelinetosh Plaid Blanket DK
• Yarn D: Madelinetosh Dandelion Chickory and Cousteau held together

These colors strike me as being marsh or swamp-like.
On one hand, because I have dark skin, I wonder if they make me look muddy or washed out. On the other, who cares? It’s creatively designed, one-of-a-kind, and pays homage to a transformational movie.

April 1-??. 2018

Handknit Section 5: Cables. Hand reforming stitches every few rows is inefficient for three reasons: 1) slippery + sticky yarn (Dandelion), 2) sticky, coarse yarn (Noro Silk Garden), 3) inability to position myself ergonomically at the machine.

March 29-31, 2018

A combination of handknitting and reforming stitches from machine knit to get through ribbing.

March 28, 2018

Things will slow down now, since I will be knitting by hand now. I do not trust my ribber abilities at this point. Stitches will drop and I will cry.

March 27, 2018

I am enjoying the new HK and updated MK patterns. I am primarily following the MK pattern. I see that I will need to use my ribber. I struggle to maintain good tension when using the ribber, so unlike when working on the main bed only, stitches begin to unravel. On the one hand, I want to challenge myself, but on the other, I don’t want to fight dropping stitches. I think I may switch to HK after the join.

March 26,2018

Finished row 144.1 and scrapped off stitches 1-38 as a pre-bedtime treat.
Finished row 98 in the early PM.
The transfer tools make doing lace on the machine much faster than handknitting for me.

March 25,2018

I find that I like the over under of knit weaving on the machine. YouTube helped a lot. I again found labelling the needles to be very helpful when triple wrapping stitches with the Noro Silk Garden. The wrapping took a long time. I used many clothes pins to help with my faux figure eight bobbins of the Silk Garden.

March 24,2018

Murphy’s Law loves me, so I have decided to put in life lines whenever I come across a new technique. This weekend, March 24-25, I will come across using the garter bar (because reforming so many stitches by hand will send me back to my sick bed) and weaving. I’m excited and rather terrified.

March 23, 2018
Rows 1-8 are a nice warm up for the challenges ahead. I hope to feel like the strong and beautiful Nakia when I have completed this project, especially because I am a novice. My mechanical aptitude has grown exponentially since learning to weave and machine knit. I find that I clean and oil my machine regularly as if it were a tuned up car. Gun oil has been useful.

I’ve used dry erase markers to mark every stitch on the main bed of the my Brother KH260. This is really helping to keep track of the twisted stitches in rows 9-25. (see picture).