Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Being careful not to twist

Of course you didn't think I'd have all that luscious sweater yarn in skeins for any longer than absolutely necessary, did you?

The trouble is, all the reorganizing and clearing I've been doing means that the surface where I eventually discovered the only place in my house that my swift and ball winder will work cooperatively is totally clogged with stuff I didn't have anyplace else to put.

But then I noticed that the table on which I was photographing the skeins, usually covered in clutter, was oddly tidy and - eureka! - has a top just slim enough to be grabbable by the ball winder.  I think it did damage the underside of the wood a bit, and since the table was built by disabled WWI veterans and given me via a grandmother, I don't want to risk it again, but I did get all that yarn prepped with a minimum of fuss.

Then I got out any book I thought would help me whip up a pattern - more on that another day - and swatched with all possible haste.  (and for once I was glad to see superwash yarn stretching out all over the place when blocked, because I don't want to be knitting this thing forever.)

Here is how far I got before noticing I had not been careful enough about not twisting the stitches before I began to work in the round:


This is not an actual picture of that, because I was in a car at the time, two scraps of paper with scrawled instructions and measurements sitting on my knee, nostrils flaring in a silent scream, when I discovered the fact.

No, that picture is of how far I got after ripping it all out and casting on all over again, and before I noticed I had dropped a stitch three rows back.  Yes, the pattern does include knit and purl stitches in elaborate sequence such that all the surrounding stitches would be affected.

(crisis averted: though the stitch had dropped, it turned out simply to have run down, so the stitches weren't thrown.  but if they had been, I would have faked that one stitch on every subsequent round because I do not have the moral fiber or emotional stamina to cast on all those stitches again and reknit that far, all the time in sock yarn, no matter how nice and squishy it is.  and it is.)

Meanwhile, I have been plugging away on other things, and perhaps I will tell you something about them tomorrow.  Or perhaps I will be still too obsessed with the sock sweater.  I know my weaknesses, after all...

2 comments:

Kathleen Taylor said...

I twisted the sweater stitches one time, and didn't notice it until I'd finished all of the ribbing. Luckily, it was a steeked cardigan, so I just cut the steek open, untwisted the sucker, and went on my merry way. I don't sppose that would work with a pullover.

heklica said...

Ouch! This hurts!