Cast On x 3

Tuesday

I’m having a great time translating my machine knit saddle-shoulder prototype into a hand knit garment. I started out thinking I would just knit a plain, one colour cardigan. Within 4 rows I was a little bored. I could put in a stitch pattern in here and that would be fun. Break yarn. Throw out swatch #1.

I had a stitch pattern in mind. It was an old swatch I had made many years ago and thought this would be the perfect project for it. And yes, it was even already charted. No sweat. Just pop it in and I’m ready to go. Cast On again. Six rows later, it’s not working. I had charted it right out of the stitch dictionary and it had you introduce a change in the pattern on a wrong side row, actually on several wrong side rows. I don’t like that. So got out my trusty pencil and eraser and recharted it with all the pattern changes on the right side. Break yarn and throw away swatch#2.

Cast On again. I’m sure I’ve got it sorted this time. All major problems solved. You may have guessed it, the small things surface now. It doesn’t have a rhythm. No flow. I have to keep looking at the chart. Time to contemplate. What’s wrong? Break yarn and throw out Swatch#3.

I don’t know what you do but believe it or not, I sing the rhythm. I do this as I knit the pattern too. Works for me. So I took out a couple of columns of stitches, put them back in, took out a column somewhere else, ended up putting in two stitches where there was one, eventually I have this: Da, bing, da, bing, da, boo, da, da, boo, boo, da, da, boo, da, bing, da, bing, da. Emphasis on the “bing”, which are stitches knit through the back loops. Seems to work now. Cast On again. 

IT’S WORKING. I now have a stitch pattern with rhythm (at least for me), a chart I rarely have to look at (admittedly I have had 3 cracks at it already and am very, very familiar with it). On the wrong side rows all I have to do is knit the knits and purl the purls. That’s another goal I worked on in the finished chart. It’s so relaxing if you don’t have to continue to check the chart on the wrong side rows even though they are patterned.

I’m moving ahead with the charts I have now. It’s going well.

Wednesday

Today is the day of mistakes. After getting several inches done yesterday, I realized that the shoulders of the Front were too wide due to the width of the stitch pattern. Back to the drawing board. Then I cast on the wrong number of stitches, cast on again correctly and forgot the first shoulder increase. Cast On again and decided that today would be a good day to read a book. So I did just that.

Thursday

Progress. New narrower Front stitch pattern is working out well. I think I’m on a roll.

-Deb