Posted under meanderings
As I feared, there isn’t much for me to write about today. I’ve been working on the Alien Illusion Scarf and there really isn’t much to show except more of the same. So I’ll share a little adventure I had the other day with my sock. I had to frog about 2 inches due to an error I made in the cable pattern.
There is this moment of fear that I get when I tear the needles away from all the precious loops, but once I get going the frogging is the easy part. The hard part is picking up the stitches back onto the needles.
I’m always afraid that one of the precious stitches will start unraveling and travel beyond any hope of redemption. Lifelines are a great way to prevent this type of situation, but I find that any time I put in a lifeline, I inevitably find a mistake below the lifeline or I don’t need the lifeline. Plus they are pesky things that require much fiddling. So I usually just neglect the use of them completely.
In lace knitting, I find it easier to repair a single stitch or a group of stitches by unravelling them and reworking them with a crochet hook. I find this harder to do in sock knitting due to the fact that the stitches are usually much smaller and the fabric is much tighter or denser, since I usually use size 1’s or 0’s. It’s usually easier to just frog or tink back to where I made the mistake.
One thing’s for sure, I heave a huge sigh of relief when I’m down with whatever knit repair I have to do and I’m back on target once again for a project.
All this talk of lace repair, plus the hype of Lacevember has got me itchin’ slightly to do some lace knitting again. Have you seen the gorgeous Casino shawl?
I really must finish my Christmas knitting first though. I’d like for this to be the first year that I actually finish the majority of my gifts in time. Wouldn’t that be great?
debbie on 08 Nov 2006 at 7:00 pm #
i know exactly what you mean about picking up stitches after frogging - now i try to un-knit if i have the patience and time. i never tried using a lifeline - it would probably jinx me, knowing my luck.
Jeanne on 08 Nov 2006 at 11:43 pm #
Generally I can just drop stitches and pick them back up on socks - I have a very tiny crochet hook that I use. Lately though - I haven’t been as succesful in that. Glad you got your back on the needles!
Alison on 09 Nov 2006 at 6:22 am #
I’ve given up on lifelines as well. Too much of a pain in the derriere because I don’t usually need them. If I have an mistake that is unfixable by the crochet hook method, I usually just rip to a row or two above and pick up and unknit to where it needs fixing. Since I usually don’t have to do that, saves time not using the lifeline.
And I have seen the Casino Shawl. It is quite lovely. Glad to hear you’re itching to do lace again. (I just started my first lace project in over a month and I’m glad to have my mojo back.)
lobstah on 09 Nov 2006 at 8:55 am #
I hate trying to get all the stitches back on the needles after frogging. It was especially bad with the double-knitting I was doing recently…twice as many sts to pick up as normal!
Agreed on lifelines. I did use them on Flirty Ruffles but only about three times. Just as a security net since it was my first lace shawl. Thankfully I didn’t need them anyway!