Sunday, April 12, 2009

The Note Would Say "When It Rains It Snows"

A friend came over on Sunday to watch the M's game (Hi, V____!), and while the game was good, the knitting was not. I was feeling all virtuous because on Saturday I finished seaming the Cables Baby sweater and fixed & finished the Green Chill sleeves. I even wove in the ends and lightly pressed the pieces of the Green Chill. And although I thought about starting a new project, I decided instead to carry on with knits already in progress.

Here's how the day went: I'd start knitting, then look down and see a mistake. So I'd put that project aside, knit for a little while on the ribbing for the Northern Lights socks, get bored, then pick up another project and start the cycle all over again. Note that with each of these mistakes were made the mistake recently, not all in a single day--I even picked up a pair of socks that I haven't worked on in a couple of weeks, with the same result. Here's a pictoral review of the carnage:

Purple Graffiti Cables


Cable Wrong


Started last weekend in DK weight yarn, the Purple Graffiti Cables seemed to be coming along quickly for 2 at a time socks. I wanted to NOT be tied to a notebook or sheet of paper while knitting, so I tried marking the cable row and then counting up from it. Bad idea--there's an extra row before the cable crossing. I will likely pull these off the needle and rib, as tinking back cables is not my idea of a good time and it should be fairly easy to get these back on the needles. That being said, if I find out that the first cable crossing was early (instead of the second one being late), I'm going to knit to the shorter length or rip out the whole sock and put the yarn away.

Blue Sea Socks



Blue Sea Mistakes


Next up-the Blue Sea Socks from the first Loopy Ewe Sock Club shipment. These haven't received much airtime because it took some time to decide what I wanted to do with the heel. I've opted to do the gusset increases on the bottom of the sock ala this pattern (PDF link) from Wendy Johnson (whose new book should be in my hands later this week). However, those increase are coming out now since I repeated some rows there at the top. The cable turns instead of waving. The loss will be about six rows, which isn't really so bad, but I'm not sure why I screwed this up because I can't even remember when I last worked on it.

Black Diamond


Black Diamond Mistakes


Lest you think that all of my knitting issues involve cables, behold a simple knit/purl mixup. Or two of them. In the larger circle, you can see that I missed a purl on the left side, so there's a break in the diamond pattern. Evidently, I put it a few stitches over. This is a pretty simple fix (akin to the problem with the Green Chill on Saturday), just ladder down and back up. In fact, it took just a couple of minutes, and then I noticed the problem in the top circle, which isn't clearly visible. Two purls on top of one another, so again off pattern, but again an easy fix.

Maybe a new project, something extra extra simple, isn't such a bad idea. Or maybe I should stick to weaving in ends and sewing buttons on the Cables Baby sweater? How much more damage can I do?


___________________
The Note Would Say "When It Rains It Snows": They Might Be Giants, "When It Rains it Snows"

5 comments:

dem Efa said...

Ugh...and you weren't even drinking while knitting?!

Lola and Ava said...

When I make a cable mistake like the purple pair, I usually leave it be since no one will notice but me (the front of Betty's Reversed Pull-Over has a cable that is longer), but the diamond pattern? I had to drop three sections out on Grace before I stuck that into a bag, never to be seen again.

AllyB said...

Even with the mistakes your knitting is looking very nice. Isn't it great that so many things can be fixed with just a crochet hook? Better luck to you when you return to those projects. The Black Diamond is beautiful.

alligator said...

This same thing happens to me! I'm never messed up in just one WIP, it's always ALL of them at once and I find it soooo irritating! None of the mistakes are hard to fix on their own but what if I don't feel like fixing one just now and just want to knit? Why does this happen?!

Therese said...

Hey, if you run out of finishing projects, I can help you out!... :D

Cookie's book arrived the day I left, and i just got the shipping notice for Wendy's. Too bad I have to finish my taxes before I can play!