Surgery and Recovery

It's just possible that I've been knitting seamless sweaters for so long that I have completely forgotten how to make flat pieces that will actually fit together.  If I ever knew how in the first place, that is (jury still out). 

The ribbing on one of my cardigan fronts was a full five rows longer than the other.  This would be the two-color, fiddly waste yarn cast on with no corresponding bind off which cannot be shortened except from the top, with a good old fashioned frogging.  Except that I was totally unwilling to tear it back, because I had completely finished that front, bobbles and shaping and all.

I had to go fetal mull it over for a day or so before admitting that there were only two choices:

Option 1:        Try to "ease" in the extra length when sewing the side seam on that piece.  I could live with this option, provided that  A.  I could keep my hand firmly held to my side at all times so as not to reveal the error, or B.   Keep moving around constantly so no one would notice. 

2.        Operate on the patient.  With no idea how to graft 2 x 2 rib, and no confidence that it could be done at all, I drank beer thought it over a while longer before arriving at my decision.

I wonder why everything always comes down to cutting sweaters with scissors in my world?  I guess when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks a lot like a nail.  I decided that while option 1. had no hope of a positive outcome (except possibly increased physical fitness), option 2. offered at least a chance of success:

Always the carnage.  I don't know what's scarier: all those live stitches, or the fact that I had to turn the piece over every two stitches make the join.  For some reason, I could recreate a knit stitch with the unraveled working yarn and a tapestry needle, but I could not mimic a purled one.

I'm pleased to announce that Crunch Berries, although clinically dead for an entire afternoon, turned back from the brink of oblivion, and her prognosis is good:

The two of us are convalescing at Sock Camp, in beautiful Port Ludlow, where the sun even came out for an entire day.  She's a fighter, that one..