This is either a story of perseverance or stupidity!
Pinctada
Pinctada is a beautiful cowl and it really isn’t hard but it does require paying attention to what yo’re doing. This is my first Camp Loopy project. We have to use 400 yards. I’ve knitted about 800 yards because I’ve done almost everything twice and some of it three times. I stop and ask myself . . where is your brain? Obviously it’s a million miles away, which is pretty normal for me and just a reminder as to why I should stick with easier, mundane patterns.
The next Tour-de-Sock comes out Saturday at 5 p.m. and I was hoping to finish Pinctada today, give my hands a rest and be ready to start the next sock as soon as the pattern comes out.
Instead of using a cable needle, I use a small double point needle for the cables but I use circular needles for the main knitting. Wednesday night, I was fixing to go to bed and went to slide the knitting back onto the cables and . . what? The stitches all slid off into the air. I had knitted the last row on that little double point so instead of sliding the stitches onto the cable, I slid the stitches right off the needle. Of course, I couldn’t go to bed til I had those stitches picked up.
Yesterday morning, I started knitting. I knitted another 22 row set and then I did the same thing again . . knitted onto that double point needle and slid all the stitches off. Thankfully I had just placed a lifeline. You’ll notice I have a lot of them . . after every 22 row set.
Once I got all the stitches back on the right needles, I counted to be sure I had them all. No! I had 61 stitches and I should have had 62 stitches. I started ripping back one stitch at a time because I figured it was just a few rows back. No, it was 66 rows back . . all the way back to 3 lifeline below. I was sick!
Got back to where things were right and knitted another 22 rows. Put in a lifeline, knitted 4 rows and looked and noticed the cables were wrong on that last set. Ripped back to where I had messed up . . about 14 rows back.
I would have finished this last night had it not been for all the ripping back.
I just finished the 10th set and I have to do 14. It isn’t due til the end of June so I think I’m going to walk away from it today and give my hands a rest til the next sock pattern is released Saturday evening. Once I finish those socks, I can finish Pinctada.
So . . what do you think . . perseverance or stupidity! 🙂 Don’t answer that!
Carolyn says
I am not a knitter, but I would say perseverance. You mind is probably wandering off to the garden and such. Take a deep breath and let those hands rest.
Ramona says
I say perseverance for sure! If it were me knitting this cowl, it would be a big wadded up ball of yarn by now. 🙂 It is going to be beautiful.
Karen Sutton says
I have to go with perseverance because I figure I knit everything at least 3 times by the time I rip and reknit and I’m not stupid so therefore neither are you. I’m almost done with sock number 1 and I’m thinking I should have knit small instead of medium because the pattern has a lot of stretch. So…….do I rip yet again and start over or keep going and give them away if they’re too big? Of course at the rate I’m going I’ll still be on sock number 1 tomorrow when the second pattern comes out and I can start on that while I decide what to do.
Sandie says
Judy, have you tried cabling without a cable needle at all? It’s the only way I’ve done cables since I learned the method right after learning how to knit socks. Much faster than changing needles and little chance of dropping stitches.
katie z. says
Ooh, it’s beautiful! That’s perseverance!