The Knitting Fiend

Pat Hendrix demonstrated slip stitch techniques at knit club; I snapped a photo of some fabric on the machine.

You can see the embossed design achieved by setting the machine to slip and selecting needles. Pat showed us a wide variety of fabrics, many of which evoke an aran effect. All were very beautiful, some were reversible; many patterns would look best on sideways knit garments.

Needless to say, seeing beautiful aran-like patterns got me thinking of using a slip stitch pattern on my sideways knit vest. Visitors have probably noticed nearly everything I’ve knit recently is in stockinet. That’s because I’ve been concentrating on using stockinet so knitters with non patterning machines can get used to using generators. But, the slip stitch techniques are available on many, many machines, including mine, and I think I’m going to be using one soon.

Meanwhile, on the sideways knit cardigan raglan….. I’m such a shlub! I took notes when I made my gauge swatch for the button band, and wrote down 50 rows. So, I knit the whole band. I thought it looked short, but figured “Oh, let it rest. Often these gauges change.” Then, I tried to sew the button band on.

Way too short!

So, I assumed “coding error”. That seems the most likely problem, right? I checked the code, then checked, then re-checked. I couldn’t see the problem.

Finally, my eyes strayed to the chair. I saw that swatch just sitting there on the chair, looking at me. It was sort of folded up and seemed to be wearing a ****-eating grin. I went over, picked it up and counted. Sixty rows. Not fifty; sixty!

Arghh. I entered the new numbers and I reknit the button band. This is the 3rd time I’ve knit it. (The first time, I made a change to Roz’s directions, and decided I should make a different change. We won’t get into that.) So, now, I’m almost afraid to try to sew it on. I’m letting the cursed thing rest!

Those who saw the previous post know that I’ve started the hand knitting project. You can see the beautiful Cascade Quatro yarn in yesterday’s picture.