Knitting, Botany, Mycology, Nature, Adventure, and Life... in no particular order.
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Can’t Believe It Worked!
So back a few posts ago I showed how I had messed up on the blanket I am knitting for a couple friends who got married. I had missed a cable and was fraught on what to do. I decided to follow the good advice and instructions by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee on her Yarn Harlot blog. I quickly discovered that I had to drop back more than the 5 offending stitches but the whole center panel! *Gasp of terror!*
So, I dropped and managed to pick up all the correct stitches. (I did some of this on the commuter rail where a lovely Irish gentleman that works for the New England Aquarium commented on how beautiful my work was and that it must be hard to do in dark colors compared to his sister that has won awards at home but usually knits in white.) So this is what I ended up with:
Deep breath looking at all those dropped rows
However, once I finally had all the stitches picked up from the same correct row, and once I figured out which row I was on, it really wasn’t so bad. I knit it back up over a couple of sittings so as not to get too tired and make another mistake. (Oh the horror!) and finally made it back to where I started on Saturday night while playing a role playing game with some friends that cutie is running. (Insert nerd/geek jokes at will.) I am pretty sure this again makes me my own superhero. (FYI that superhero is always either early or 80’s female empowerment Wonder Woman)
And now I’ve continued along, good as new, and have even now added the 4th ball of yarn. I think it looks pretty darn good, and I may have lost 2 weeks but I probably didn’t loose reknitting about 2400 stitches! At this point it would be fair to say I have knit about 18,200 if you don’t include mistake fixing! Whoa!
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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:
- Leave it, say that hand knit things have mistakes, and never look back!
- 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.
- 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.)
