I taught a lovely beginners class yesterday on herringbone stitch and really enjoyed watching everyone learn and master the stitch, especially those who had tried before and not managed it.

At the end of the day I came home desperate to create something myself.

My new knitting kit seemed perfect.

I thought I would spend the evening figuring out the instructions and knitting away.

Of course, like all my previous knitting attempts, it went nothing like that.

First up was my usual problem of holding the needles being uncomfortable and awkward- they just don't feel right in my hands.

But I persevered until it soon became apparent that I was increasing at some points and my stitches all seemed a bit weird.

I was on the verge of giving up when I considered doing what I always tell my own students to do- practice the basics.

It occured to me that I was racing ahead trying to complete a project when actually I needed to go back to basics and spend some time just knitting.

I needed to make sure I was knitting my stitches correctly, that I knew enough about knitting to be able to see what was happening and then, hopefully, the weird instructions would actually make sense.

So, I undid my work (for about the 8th time) got out a knitting book and sat down and played.

I got nowhere.

The book I had chosen was one which was recommended to me years ago but had line drawings of the techniques and instructions which were far too complicated for a beginner.

So out came another book. This one made a bit more sense and soon I realised that I was actually making my purl stitches incorrectly- which explained why it was getting weird on me.

But, even with the help of the book there were bits that I just didn't understand. For example- how on earth do I move my working yarn from the front to the back when moving from purl to knit stitch?

None of my books cover that at all and I felt I was just not doing it right.

Then I remembered that I had received a free DVD a few years ago when I subscribed to a knitting magazine (see just how deluded I am about knitting!)

So I sat and watched it.

And watched it.

And watched it.

All the while knitting and undoing my work until I finally began to see what was going on.

After about 5 hours of plain knitting I was ready to try my pattern again.

So I dove right back in and bam- my work made no sense.

So I looked at it, and looked at the instructions, then my work and then the instructions.

A lightbulb went off in my head- there were numerous mistakes in the instructions- aarrgghh.

No wonder it was all going wrong for me and the pattern not working out.

So, I sat down and knitted whilst using the instructions as a basic guide, but my own common sense when it came to areas where I felt it was wrong and voila- my piece is finally taking shape.

By then of course my poor hands were turned into claws (I'm still not holding my work right I think) but I finally felt I was getting somewhere.

All those hours of playing and learning were incredibly valuable in helping me get better at basic knitting and learn one of the most important skills in knitting (and beading) - learning to know what your work should look like so that you can spoit immediately when it goes wrong.

So I am really pleased with my progres and actually think this might be one piece I finish.

Then of course I made the silly error of putting my work down without noting where in the pattern I stopped- oops!