Ah… the best laid plans of knitters knitting away over and over again on recalcitrant heels. I would think that those heels were trying to tell me something, except this little issue cropped up only on the third heel iteration — the successful one.
If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.
You can see it. Right there where the blue arrow is. I crossed the middle three stitches over the right-hand three stitches instead of under them. In fact, you can see it in the final picture from my last post — the I have a happy heel and red toes and I’m oh so smart post. It’s right there. I didn’t even notice.
Oops.
Monday at knit night – a knit night that I rarely get to attend but which is always tons of fun – I finished the second heel and turned blithely to the instep and knit across the first sock, turning cables as I went. I reached the second sock. I went to turn the cable.
I am sorry to report that I may have said a few rather unladylike words even though there was a baby present. I’m not sure. I really don’t remember. I only remember sitting there in horror and frustration and saying I will not rip those heels out yet again!
Can’t you just fix it without ripping? Asked Bobbie.
I admitted that I could. But not in Bella Espresso, where the lighting is coffee-house dim. So I went over to Macy’s to look for a new handbag. A little retail therapy, dontcha know. (I didn’t find one. Payback for oaths spoken where wee ears might hear.)
Once at home, I stationed myself in my brightly-lit kitchen. Now brightly lit, anyway. Gentle reader, have you ever noticed how all of your kitchen lights (assuming you have more than one) burn out at the same time? A couple of weeks ago (three? four?), one of the 7 spotlights in my kitchen burned out. Soon after, another one followed. I started thinking that I really needed to remember to pick up bulbs when next I was at the store. But, somehow although I could remember kitty litter and coffee and bananas, light bulbs totally escaped me at every store visit. Until I got home and turned on the kitchen light and another bulb went pop-sizzle-snap and the kitchen got a little darker. And then I’d think to myself, I really must remember to pick up some bulbs when next I’m at the store. I was down to the bulb over the sink and was cooking mostly by feel when I finally remembered. My kitchen is now a brightly-lit place, but not a place really conducive to taking pictures of shiny knit objects. But I don’t think I did too badly.
At any rate, while waiting for dinner to cook, I stationed myself in the kitchen – now the most brightly lit room in chez PI – and began surgery on the mis-crossed cable.
The first step is to carefully tink just the three mis-crossed stitches back a few rows to the row where the cable was actually crossed. Note that I could have tinked back either the three stitches wrongly crossed over the top, or the three stitches wrongly crossed underneath. I chose to tink on top because those were the first three stitches I came to when working across the instep of this sock.
Once the stitches were tinked back and I was back to where I started, so to speak, I could cross the cable the correct way. All I needed to do was poke the stitches through the little hole that the crossing makes and pick them back up on the back side.
Well, it was a little tricky. Because this is a sock and my gauge is fairly small, I kept the stitches on a spare needle end with the point towards the right. Then I poked the stitches through to the back side, and transfered the stitches to a spare needle end with the point toward the left.
Now I had the cable crossed correctly, and the only thing left to do was to re-knit those stitches up the rows that I had tinked out. The strands of yarn for those rows were just sitting there waiting for me, so it wasn’t too tough to get those stitches reknit. Then I used the tip of my needle to adjust the gauge a little so that everything was nice and even and crossed the right way and the scarring was so minimal that you couldn’t even tell that surgery had been performed.
Ah…. all better. The cable is crossed the right direction and the order of the universe is restored and I can go ahead and start knitting away on the ankles, around and around and around.
I could show you what happens when one picks up the wrong needle end and starts knitting with it. But maybe I’ll leave that story for another day. Because nothing like that would ever happen around here. Nope. 🙄
Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. You gave me much to think about. Most of you talked about knitting socks. Which is no surprise because we talk about socks a lot here. Like, obsessively. Every year I make a resolution to knit fewer socks and more other objects. You can look at the sidebar to see how well I’ve done this year. Yeah. Not a pretty site.
Are you as likely to frog a sweater or scarf or hat as you are to frog a pair of socks? Or do socks somehow seem different or special?
Such a drag when that kind of thing happens. But don’t you feel a great sense of accomplishment when you can fix it without ripping everything back? I like that feeling. Let’s me know there’s hope for putting a capital K on “knitter” after my name. 🙂
1Remark from Cindy in Oregon — Wednesday, 9/12/2007 @ 8:48 AM
Even if I’d never done this kind of thing before, there was no way I was going to knit that heel again. Ever. ❗
What does it say about my mad knitting skillz that I have experience with this sort of repair? 🙄
2Remark from Judy — Wednesday, 9/12/2007 @ 9:05 AM
I don’t want to jinx you or anything, but what will be next with these socks? … perish the thought … They seem to be just wanting to cause you all sorts of misfortune. You did a beautiful job of fixing your mistake though and I would’ve never attempted it. My tinking back rarely has such even-looking results. It’s something I suppose I need to work at.
I think my willingness to frog something is in direct proportion to how much time I’ve spent knitting that project.
3Remark from ~Kristie — Wednesday, 9/12/2007 @ 11:19 AM
Stellar repair job! Plus giggling at the kitchen lights story, because I regularly do that sort of thing. Only it tends to be more because I am not good on stepladders, and wait until I get my SIL over on a shopping trip or something…and forget about it. [g]
Frogging…um. I’ll get back to you when I actually finish a sock. 😯 (Note how carefully I did not use the plural, as in “a pair.”) But I have noticed that while I go slow, I am sticking with the socks, which is more than you can say for most of my previous knitting. So yeah, I think socks are special. Even plain round and round in stockinette!
4Remark from MonicaPDX — Wednesday, 9/12/2007 @ 2:54 PM
I agree with Kristie on the frogging bit. If I’ve only done the ribbing an a few rows of a sweater, frog ho. If, on the other hand, I have knit an entire front or back, no way will I frog it.
I do, however, have vague recollections of frogging the front of an entire Colinette Point 5 sweater. Not a big deal since it took an afternoon to knit on fence-posts, and an evening to re-knit.
Seems I also frogged about 50 rows of double-stranded knitting on a baby blanket once. Took the whole time Yarn Harlot was speaking to get it done. (The yarn store had made an error in the pattern they gave me.)
My limit is three tries, then I put things away for a while and go work on something else.
5Remark from Anne — Wednesday, 9/12/2007 @ 6:22 PM
I’m a perfectionist. I frog anything that looks wrong, unless I’m on a tight deadline. In that case, I curse quite a bit, then let it alone as long as a non knitter can’t tell the difference.
Oh, the shame.
6Remark from Kathy — Wednesday, 9/12/2007 @ 8:34 PM