June 7, 2004

Moron alert

I am a moron. I have no idea what possesses me sometimes, but I manage to make startling and innovative knitting errors without even trying. I've been happily knitting the blue cabled tank, (especially enjoying the cabled part) and gleefully I reached the arm and neck shaping last night. I was thrilled (because I would have something finished to show you this morning) and began to do the decreases.

They didn't work. the decreases are supposed to fall in a particular place in the ribbed pattern, and on one side it was all...well, perplexing. Careful examination revealed that I had made a mistake in setting up the ribbing, and had faithfully knitted the entire tank with a ribbing pattern completely generated by my imagination. It's whacked. You know how sometimes you can see where you went wrong? Like you transposed two numbers? Or you misread one of instructions...you can look at your work and say "Ah, yes, there's my mistake . That's the moment."

Not this time. The ribbing pattern that I knit bears no relationship to the pattern. None. As near as I can tell it is completely random. Funny thing is, I remember setting up the pattern and really paying attention. At this point it's going to have to be fixed or the straps won't look the same. Here's the plan. The way I see it, only 2/3 of the blue tank front is on crack, so frogging the whole thing seems like the true path to misery, equalled only by repeated floggings inefficient. I have therefore decided to fix the ribbing one wrong stitch at a time.

drop1

I dropped the first of the wrong stitches (naturally, since there are only two options, knit and purl - some of the stitches are correct, not because I didn't screw them up, but because there is a 50% chance that some will be right, even if the knitter abandons all conventions and picks a random ribbing pattern) and encouraged it to unravel all the way to the cast on.

drop2

Here's something interesting. Ever noticed that if you drop a stitch by accident it will run all the way to the cast on edge in a heartbeat, but if you want it to run down you will have to spend time encouraging the lame little arse to run down, unpicking it each and every row? Don't tell me that knitting is inanimate. I have too much proof that it holds a grudge.

drop3

Once I had dropped it all the way down, I whipped out my trusty crochet hook (there's a phrase you thought you would never hear on this blog) and chained the stitch back up correctly.
Now, I only have to do that with 15 more stitches. (See that? See the way I managed to type that sentence with no hint of the bitterness that I'm feeling? The tank was supposed to be done today and instead I'm playing stupid little crochet hook games and there isn't anybody I can even blame but myself. I hate that. Still, I managed to type that sentence without revealing any of the dark, loathsome feelings that I'm having for the blue tank, and instead only showed it my concern for it's well being. I am hoping that this will encourage the blue tank to abstain from punishing me further. I suspect that this trouble with the tank stems from it's resentment of the photoshopped images where I debase it's blueness. I may have to either refrain from altering it's images, or not knit near the computer.)

Posted by Stephanie at June 7, 2004 11:42 AM