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I finally finished the body, the sleeves, and the collar. (To do: applied i-cord edging, and weaving in the ends.)
Those of you with two- to three-year-old children have reassured me that these proportions (sleeves longer than body) are normal. If it turns out to be incorrect, I blame you, Random Unknown Internet People.
Oh, but what’s that on the back? Let’s get a closer look at that.
Mm, yes. Although the increase line is actually perfectly centered, it looks off-centered, because of the way the increases go.
I had promised myself that I wouldn’t bother with this until the very last, so that I would only fiddle with it if I had plenty of time left before the sweater is due. Well, it turned out that I had plenty of time, and some people have been gallivanting around making this sort of thing look easy, so I decided to drop the stitches and correct the perceived un-centered-ness.
First, I undid the cast-off row, and put all of the stitches onto needles. I put most of the stitches onto a circular needle. The ones to be dropped, I put on a DPN. Then I placed other DPNs at the end of the dropping part (so they wouldn’t scamper madly past it, as this yarn is wont to do) and a few on either side on DPNs as well, as a quarantine measure, in case I dropped too many. (n.b. this turned out to be a wise move, because I did indeed drop too many, and one of them would have been a row with YOs and k2togs that I wouldn’t have wanted to try to recreate.)
Then I pulled out the DPN, and let the stitches fly.
Hey, I thought, I can do this! I knit festively along for about ten rows before the problem began to manifest itself.
The Problem was that I had rather a lot of slack on the left side. And it kept getting worse. But I couldn’t stop with the knitting up the ladders, or the whole thing would fall apart. So I just told myself You will fix it when you’re done with this part, everything is fixable, you have not ruined the Girlfriend, just knit as evenly as possible, it will all be okay. Meanwhile, I began, quite literally, to sweat.
It was as I crouched there over the knitting on my desk, wiping sweat from my face with my free arm, trying not to grind my teeth, muttering reassurances and thinking “OMGOMGOMG!!!!” as each row was worse than the last – it was at this time that Kimble hopped onto the desk for some loving. He gingerly planted himself on the knitting – I did not have a hand free to shoo him away, and I was trying to Just Get Through This part – and started gently head-butting my hands with his head. Hi! I love you! Please pet me! Can I be on the blog?
YES FINE YOU CAN BE ON THE BLOG, JUST PLEASE DO NOT INTERRUPT ME.
How – seriously – how does he know about the camera? He had been butting my hand and nibbling the needles, until I quietly reached over and hit the power button on the camera, and it made its little crr-chhk waking up noise. At this, he perked up, made a really silly face (see above), and held perfectly still until I took the picture and set the camera back down.
As soon as I took his picture and put down the camera – I swear to you, this is true – he got up and hopped off the desk, apparently satisfied.
How does he know?
At any rate, I promised him he could be on the blog, and there he is. Now, back to The Incident. Lest you think I’m exaggerating, here’s what I had when I was finished:
Let’s step back and get a better look at the scale of The Problem.
I finally worked out (okay, I decided) that there must have been some extra increases there on the side that I’d never noticed. I mostly decided this because turning those big gaping holes into stitches seemed to be the only way to handle the problem.
After about an hour of swearing at the crochet hook, and desperately tugging on things, this is the final result.
Better than it looked when I was finished knitting back up, certainly. But better than before I started, when the stitches looked nice but the increase line was un-centered?
Well.
That’s a question I’m not equipped to answer. And barring a time machine, it’s a bit of a moot point. Since it’s cotton (not nice, forgiving wool) not much is going to improve with the blocking. So let’s all go have a nice cup of coffee and watch some DVDs and try to put this little episode behind us, shall we?
Comments (12)
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what dvd do you want to watch? how about something with Johnny Depp?
ps. seriously, the jacket looks fine – and I think it looks better now that you’ve recentered that line!
Comment by ann —
July 10, 2006 @ 4:54 am
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don’t worry, no one will notice. And kids grow so fast, you will be making another one in 6 months .
Comment by Sharon —
July 10, 2006 @ 7:24 am
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Wow! I am absolutely amazed that you pulled out all those stitches and then managed to put it all back together again! Truth be told, fixing mistakes and I do not get along very well…
Comment by Ren —
July 10, 2006 @ 9:59 am
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The sweater looks awesome. If it doesn’t block better, it will at least wear better since cotton tends to hang a little more than wool does when it is worn.
Comment by Yvonne —
July 10, 2006 @ 10:28 am
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You handled this only about five billion times better than I would have. Also, can cats perceive infra-red? Anyone? I think that’s the light source that cameras use for auto focus and that remotes use for changing channels. I’m not sure about cats, but those things really get a reaction out of some of our fish.
Comment by ballookey —
July 10, 2006 @ 12:27 pm
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It looks great. And anyway the kid will probably be moving so fast, that the sweater will be flapping along.
Comment by Advice Monkey —
July 10, 2006 @ 12:56 pm
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I am reassured by the thought that it won’t fit for more than 6 months or so, and that the natural sag of cotton will help blur the “repairs.” It was a good experience, at least.
Regarding Kimble – he really just likes to have his picture taken. Even with my old camera, which didn’t have auto-focus, he would pose for a picture, and sneak into pictures that didn’t involve him. The only thing that makes it inexplicable is… he’s just a cat. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even read the blog. He does enjoy being a star, though!
I feel a bit bad for his brother Brady, who doesn’t get 1/10th the blogging attention. Point a camera at Brady and he will look irritated for a moment, then get up and leave – as any cat should.
Comment by Erika —
July 11, 2006 @ 1:51 am
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Um hi – I just found this post from the yarnival thingie. I know it’s an old post but I just had to say – HOLY CRAP! I’m sorry excuse my bad language – it couldn’t be helped. Wow I am just stunned that you dropped out the entire back end of the sweater. Your a very brave knitter, very brave indeed.
Comment by Jody —
September 6, 2006 @ 12:32 pm
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Thanks, Jody! It’s not something I’d try again, unless I was using a more forgiving yarn. It did teach me to be a little more tolerant of ripping back to fix mistakes in progress, though…
Comment by Erika —
September 6, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
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Wow. I’m impressed. I think, after the first time, I would’ve ripped it out in frustration.
And how did Kibble know? Apparently he just needed some blog love…
Comment by Chris —
September 6, 2006 @ 6:33 pm
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[...] ur brain off and let it knit itself. And that’s quite enough to keep me entertained. Erika asks: how does he know? There are many cats in the knitting blogosphere. Cats are the pet of choice for [...]
Pingback by Needle Exchange » Yarnival! Volume 1, Issue 1 —
September 14, 2006 @ 6:00 pm
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You did a fabulous job! I don’t know if I would have had the guts to try out this technique, but the sweater really does look great.
Comment by Sandy —
October 25, 2006 @ 4:41 pm
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