Knitting Lesson No. 214

In which older daughter proves she is smarter than I am. (Younger daughter no doubt is as well, but she wasn't part of this project.)

See the pretty yarn? It's going to be the Shaelyn shawl, pattern available for $5.00 on Ravelry.

(Baxter WANTS the yarn. No, Baxter)

I had two questions after I read the cast on instructions: No. 1 What the ....? and No. 2 If I want 7 stitches, why can't I just cast ON 7 stitches?

Here are the cast on instructions that I did not understand AT ALL and read over the phone to older daughter, so that she could say, "What the...?" with me.

With length of waste yarn and crochet hook, chain 4 stitches. Using knitting needle and your shawl yarn, pick up and knit 2 stitches in the bumps at the back of the 2 middle chains. (This I understood.)

Then, knit 7 rows in garter stitch (knitting every row). At the end of the 7th row, do not turn. Instead, rotate work 90 degrees, pick up and knit 3 stitches in each of the garter bumps, then release the 2 stitches held by the waste yarn and knit both stitches. (7 stitches now on the needle)

But instead of saying, "What the....?" she explained to me what the instructions said.

First of all, here is the crocheted chain:

Here are the two stitches knit into the chain:

This is the mess I made while trying to knit into the purl bumps on the side of the garter stitch knitting. I'm not really sure what I actually DID knit into:

Here are the required seven stitches. At first I had eight, but I dropped one. No harm, no foul, I say.

And this is the sort-of triangle mess I made after the first row of increases:

And now on to question # 2:

Why, if I want seven stitches, can't I just cast on seven stitches?
Aha! I can! I just won't have a triangle beginning to a triangle scarf.

This will not bother me in the least, so I'm off to rip this sucker out.