24th October 2009

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Big trouble in cable city

So I’m working on knitting a present for a couple of friends of mine who got married. (Technically I have the whole first year so who cares if I cast on after the wedding!) It’s a mod of a complicated Starmore sweater into a lovely afghan. A few cables, a bit of simple lace, and viola!

So the thing about cables is that though they are simple in theory, there are some problems that can arrise, especially if one is lazy and does not actually use someting to underline their working row on all the charts.

Here is the panel in question:

Can you see the problem? How about now?

So this is what it is supposed to look like:

and this is what I have:

and if you look back to the first picture you might notice I have knit quite a bit since then. A whole additional repeat from where that mistake is. About 23 rows. 23 ROWS! And now I see that I have 3 options:

1. Leave it, say that hand knit things have mistakes, and never look back!
2. Drop back just those 5 stitches and see if I can figure out how to fix it and reknit everything along the way with just the cable needle, crochet hook, and my wits.
3. Frog back 23 rows and fix the mistake and then reknit 23 rows.

As I see it 1 is straight out. I refuse to succumb to my own stupidity and laziness at forgetting a cable cross. Number 2 is terrifying and yet if it works is the least amount of work. I just haven’t yet figured out how exactly it would work, though I can usually figure out how to grab stitches as knits and purls, not usually 5 in a row with cables. The final option will work if the second option fails. (So long as I don’t drop other things along the way. I am suddenly considering lifelines for every pattern repeat.) However the idea of reknitting that many rows is inconceivable very hard. The backside rows speed along, but the front-side rows, when I am in a good rhythm and everything is moving perfectly probably take me no less than 10 minutes, which means if I was only doing front rows perfectly then it would take me about 2 hours of perfect knitting to redo all that work.

I think morning is a better time to tackle this, perhaps even afternoon after coffee and a lot of thinking. I may even have to phone a friend for some help, if only moral support! (Chocolate and wine may be on hand for the post results in case of both good or bad. Or beer, beer alyways helps… right? Maybe I should have one of those now.)

Tags knittinglifecablesmistakes