Knit – tink – frog … but lace is still lovely

Tags

charts, frogging, knitting, lace, lace patterns, laceweight, Pattern, shawls, yarn

Cast on
Knit knit count
Knit knit count count
Tink* count
Tink tink count count
Frog**

Cast on
Knit knit count
Knit knit count
Knit knit count
Tink count
Knit knit knit knit
Count
Knit knit knit knit
Knit …

I like charts when I’m knitting lace patterns. Once you’ve done a few rows, it’s easy to spot any mistakes since your knitting doesn’t match the image. Usually. For some reason this time, I really struggled to get going with this straightforward pattern. Unpicking lace stitch-by-stitch is a challenge. The yarnover loops often mess with your stitch counts. I think that’s what happened to me here. The best thing to do? Begin again. I’ve now done five repeats of the pattern and it’s looking quite splendid.

This is Magic Waves by Kieran Foley knitted in Manos del Uruguay Lace yarn.

*Tink means to undo your knitting stitch-by-stitch (it is literally the word knit backwards).

**Frog is a word adopted by knitters to define ripping out row after row of knitting (‘rip-it, rip it’).

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WIP Wednesday – two steps forward and one step back

Tags

aeroplane, attempt, frogging, knitting, learning, patterns, progress, Ravelry, socks, texture, WIP, WIP Wednesday

I was away over the weekend. It was literally a flying visit. Taking the second sock of this pair (which has admittedly grown since the toe appearing here) didn’t seem like a good idea. I might get it finished and run out of knitting! Hardly likely but, of course, that would be when a flight gets delayed! I’d also have to take the first sock so I’d know exactly when to start the ribbing and when to cast off.

Starting a new pair sounded like a much better idea! So I did. I got the toe knitted up before we left and was ready to get cracking with some texture. I chose  Kebnekaise, having had it in mind when I bought the sock wool. Unfortunately, my colour splashes are much shorter and it just didn’t look right. I carried on for a bit, just to be sure, and then a good two inches into the foot, I frogged.

Attempt number two: Estonian Button Stitch Socks – from memory. Well my memory did not serve me well and the sock looked awful. The “buttons” pulled the stitches together and made gaps either side. So the sock was frogged back to the toe. Again.

Attempt number three: Hermione’s Everyday Socks. You can’t go wrong there, I thought. After all there are 5887 pairs of them on Ravelry. So off I went, knitting plain rows in-between the patterned rows until I had about two inches of foot. Again. Was I happy? No. The fabric felt very dense and I tried blaming it on the sock yarn even though it was quite normal otherwise. Something wasn’t right. In desperation I frogged. Again.

Attempt number four? Yes, there was a fourth attempt. I was in an aeroplane after all. I started anew with the same knit 3, purl 1 ribbing I’m doing on the sock I didn’t want to take with me! It works but I’m really not keen to knit the same pattern all over again right now.

So what did I learn? The patterned rows on Hermione are one purl for every three knit stitches and not one purl for every knit stitch. Estonian Button Stitch is quite different to what I was attempting to do and, done properly, I think this would match the yarn quite nicely.

Take a deep breath…

Tags

frogging, knitting, mistake, patterns, shawls

• and count to ten.
• Make use of an F-word*
• and start again!

*The F-word here is frog. This pattern (Teardrop by Kieran Foley) isn’t too tricky to knit but un-knitting the likes of [sl3tog as if to k, k2tog, psso] and [ssk k5 k2tog] is never easy. Starting over is!

Learning from my mistakes

Tags

frogging, gift, knitting, mistake, patterns, projects, yarn

I had been looking forward to starting this project. It was an easy knit and the yarn was well suited to it.  I’ve made something similar before so it was going to be stress-free knitting. There’s a recipient for this so it’s top secret at the moment but here’s a little teaser…

Somehow this wasn’t the satisfying knit it should have been. The dimensions seemed wrong and the fabric dense. I thought it might be better once there was more of the  item so I carried on but quickly ran into construction difficulties. I’ve met these before and solved them – kind of. I knit some more. My dissatisfaction grew with the knitting. There was no way I was ever going to give this to anyone.

It had to be frogged! One last look then I took it off the needles and ripped it back. It’s rather alarming how quick and easy ripping back is – it’s a bit like spending all afternoon preparing dinner, to have it wolfed down in ten minutes flat!

Now I’m using a different pattern, different needles and this is turning out to be the fun project I was looking for!