The pot scrubber flurry seems to be over and bean-filled juggling bags are being merrily produced, interesting yarn being used. More about them later – photos and how*to*do – but what has caused me to a leap and shout is discovering an easier way to pick up stitches along a side of knitting. In this juggling bag instance, (and I look forward to trying this out on the next sock I knit) I had knit a square and with the twelve stitches still on the needle I wanted to pick up twelve stitches along the right-angled side of the square. Normally I would have used the needle with the stitches on it to poke its way, stitch by stitch, along the length, picking up and knitting a stitch as I went.
For some reason, this time, my eye latched onto the idle needle as I was about to begin this task (and it is a bit of a chore as it never seems to proceed evenly but usually requires a bit of back-tracking to line those stitches up evenly). I wondered what would happen it I used the idle needle to simply pick up stitches starting from the far end of the edge right-angling the actively knitted edge, pick them up without knitting them and then, once they were loaded onto that needle, use it as the left handed one and simply knit them onto the one already carrying the knitted stitches.
Well! It worked wonderfully. It was so simple and much easier to observe the distance and space the stitches accordingly.
It would be lovely if, as I am describing all this in words and hoping to convey the information, if somehow a pencil could be drawing pictures of the procedure. But if this is possible, I am not aware of it or how to do it, so I’m doing my best. All best doing yours: it is a worthwhile epiphany I’m glad I now know about.