A Fickle Persuasion…

Knitting can be such a fickle thing… it goes from wonderful to hair-pulling on a whim.  I am always just 1 mis-stitch away from a disaster, it seems.  It is sort of like Mr. Boots, our beloved minx stray that adopted us.  He craves attention and loves to be scratched or rubbed, but he may very well nip the hand that is loving on him.  Knitting is that way… except it may bite on the nether parts.

I am working my very first lace pattern!  Yes!  I can do this!  I am at the half-way mark on my project.  I proudly pat myself on the back from time to time as I am working along, loving the way the pattern is developing, row by row. Pattern row, knit row, pattern row, knit row.  But wait… something is not working out here.

“Pride goeth before the fall.”  How true these words of wisdom are.  It only takes one time of forgetting to do the YO (yarn over) to totally throw the pattern off. (Actually, I MAY have forgotten to YO several times on the offending row, but it only takes ONE time to blow the pattern out of the water.)  And since there is a plain row between each pattern row, being the novice knitter that I am, I did not realize the incorrect stitch count until it was too late.

“Frogging”  (Rippit-rippit!) goes so easily in quilting, although it is a real time-killer when you are under a deadline.   When I mis-stitch in quilting I just grab the seam ripper and pick out the offending stitches, re-stitch, and we are good to go.  You would think knit “frogging” would also be a breeze but it just is not so.  And I submit the evidence below:

1.  Just a quick glance can usually tell me where the quilting went bad… I have worked on finding my knitting mistake for about 1 1/2 hours now.

2.  Taking the knitting OUT is easy, but making sure you have all the live stitches on the needles is a real pain, and very time consuming. This has taken about another 45 minutes to rip back one row of 120 stitches.

3.  Then there is the little problem of being sure the stitches on the needles are turned the correct way after frogging.  I am slowly figuring this out… experience is a hard but good teacher on things like this. 

Long story short, I THINK I have found the problem, I THINK I have ripped out all the mistake-ridden row, and I THINK I have all stitches turned the correct direction.  We will see… the next pattern row will be the “proof in the pudding”.

But it will be SOOO worth it when my Fresco Basket Whip Cowl (a free Ravelry pattern) is finished.   The soft, squishiness  of the KnitPicks Andean Treasure yarn (100% baby alpaca)  and the “Tidepool” color are wonderful things.  (It is a little brighter in color than the photo shows.)

I know you are thinking, “She lives in Louisiana.  When would she ever need a cowl?”  Sometimes it just is not about NEED, my friends, but rather a NEED to KNIT!  Colder weather is coming next week, and I will be so ready for it, in my Fresco Basket Whip Cowl, which I am hoping does NOT cause “hat-hair” when used as shown in the Ravelry picture.

For those visiting from Judy’s Patchwork Times “On the Needles Friday”, you may enjoy seeing the BOATLOAD of knitting I have done in the past month.  Check this post for an update, please.

Happy knitting, my friends.  May all your k2tog’s and yo’s be correctly placed!

KAT