Wanna Come Play?

Introducing: The Color Wheel Bag

There are still a few spaces open in my "Knitting Behind The Wheel" class this weekend!  Come out and play with us in Vancouver, WA to receive the exclusive kit and pattern for this fun felted bag.  It's not just a beautiful and useful felted pouch:  It's also a living "dictionary" of your favorite color combinations.  In this class we'll learn the rules of Color Theory, then break 'em.  Other skills I'll teach you include:

Modular Knitting
Applied Knitted Cord
Dorset Buttons

And did I mention we get to spend the day knitting together?  Doesn't get more fun than that, my friends.

Contact me HERE for more information.
 

How to Fix a Mis-Crossed Cable

Some of you very helpfully pointed out after my last post that not everyone is familiar with the technique for repairing a mistake in knitting without ripping out all the stitches back to the error.  This is referred to as "laddering down", "laddering back", "dropping down", or, in some cases "Holy S@#*! Now what do I do?" 

Herewith, A Tutorial:

Let's imagine that you are knitting a some swell cables that are all supposed to cross in the same direction (in this case, to the right).  Let's imagine that you are watching a movie with subtitles, or lots of action, or a particularly dreamy star *Cough-Game-of-Thrones-Cough*, and you get a little distracted.  And then let's imagine that during a commercial, you proudly spread out your knitting to admire it, only to realize that one of those wee cables has managed to twist in the wrong direction (in this case, to the left).  Or maybe it wasn't even a cable, but a split stitch, or a k2tog that should have been an SSK, or some other horror that Shall Not be Named.  This technique will allow you to fix whatever went wrong a while back in your knitting, without tearing out all the perfectly good knitting around (and since) the mistake.

If you're not already using one, switch to a circular needle with a nice long cable before you start.
 

First, knit up to the problem stitch (or group of stitches, if they cross/travel over each other) in your established pattern as if nothing had gone wrong, then stop, leaving your working yarn hanging.  In this case, my miss-crossed cable has 4 sts, so that's how many I'm going to ladder down.
 

Slip the live sts off the needle.  Take a deep breath.

Pull the needles forward on either side of your working area so that the stitches you aren't laddering will stay safely suspended on their cable (now they can't accidentally drop off the points of the main needles).

Using the point of another needle (I like short, small-diameter DPNs best for this job), gently pull out the live sts, one row at a time, all the way back to the mistake.

When you reach the error, pull it out, and then stop.  Exhale.  You're halfway done.
 

Pick up the live sts on your little DPN.  Don't worry if they twist the wrong way, just get them on the needle.  Once you have them all picked up, re-orient each st so it presents properly (not twisted) for reknitting.

From this point forward, you will reknit each "mini-row" (the laddered sts in each row) using a second DPN and following your pattern, one row at a time.

Use the loose yarn from each ladder rung (frogged sts) to rework each mini-row.  Make sure to check carefully at the beginning of every mini-row that you are using its proper ladder rung, without skipping any.

Here I'm using a cable needle to cross the cable properly on the mini-row where it should have happened the first time.  Not pictured: My expression of smugness and relief.

And now the cable is crossing as it should.  Above you can see the ladder rungs still waiting to be reknit.  Notice how much slack is in each one?  That's what makes this party trick possible.  Thanks, Knitting!

And now we're back to the top of the work again.  Unless you tell them, no one will ever know you jacked it up the first time, and your secret is safe with me.

Carefully slip the reknit sts from your DPN back onto the Left main needle.

Continue in pattern with your working yarn, as if the detour had never happened.  

Sleep soundly, knowing you are the Rock Star you always suspected yourself to be.

Omelette = Broken Eggs

So there I was, happily knitting on the back of the Desert Island cardigan, when I was seized by a bout of OCD  Imperfection Intolerance.  I was about 6 pattern repeats up the back when I realized that I simply could not abide the centered double decrease called for in the chart I was using.  I had done it as charted 6 times in my swatch.  I had done it as charted 30 times in my sweater back.  And that was it; I couldn't do it that way any more.  I realized that I wanted it how I wanted it, and now there was no choice but to ladder back.  30 times.

Here is the diamond motif, as charted, with a classic centered double decrease:

See how the stitch from the top of the lower diamond kind of squirms itself up and over into the next diamond?  Like it wasn't even invited?  Like it just sort of stopped by and then decided to stay for the party?  For reasons only my therapist can tell you, I simply couldn't have it.  What was wanted, I realized, (30 repeats later) was this:
 

This is your trusty garden-variety SL1, k2tog, PSSO maneuver.  See how he keeps the riffraff from the diamond downstairs from sneaking up into the festivities above?  Cordoned Off, my friends.  That is a diamond who has itself sorted, and once I thought of it, no other diamond would do.

Once I found myself unable to deny my need for disciplined diamonds, I faced the classic conundrum:  Ladder back or frog it?  For some reason, it felt like a real frog-out would be admitting defeat in some way.  After all, the other cables and the side panels were all behaving themselves perfectly well, so why should they be mercilessly ripped apart?  No, only a ladder-down seemed fair, which I (maniacally) deftly managed while watching a documentary about sushi (Note to self: subtitles are no friend of laddered cables). 

After that was done, I smugly forged ahead, finishing the back almost completely before I noticed one little diamond up near the shoulder.  It had somehow managed to invite one of those ill-behaved center double decreases over, right under my militant eye.  Nothing for it but to ladder back again.  At least this time (I told myself), there was only one diamond to fix.  And hey, it was only 3 repeats ago.  These things are sent to try us.

By this time I had pressed an uncommon degree of service out of my Brittany glove needles (super-sexy wee DPNs that are only 5" long)  They were perfect for the job because they were so short I could easily work the 7-stitches of each repair row without any undue tangling or snagging.  Even if you don't knit gloves, I highly recommend you get a set of these little cuties, just for such emergencies.  But don't treat them unfairly, like I evidently did:

They really aren't much more than cocktail picks, after all.  Alas, poor DPNs, I'm sorry.  Your sacrifice was not in vain, though.  With your help, I have at last achieved Sweater Back:
 

And my new cast on book has arrived, just in time for me to see if there isn't some better option available than the one I picked for the back.  And no, in case you're wondering: If I find one, I will not be laddering back to the cast on to fix it.  That would just be anal.