two steps forward, two steps back

It's a very good thing I'm a process knitter. Have I already said that somewhere here? I've been thinking it a lot lately. I'm also beginning to think of the linebacker raglan as the Brainfart Raglan. Yep, I capitalized it; it's official.

What I like:

Isn't that nice, how the knit stitches of the 2-by-2 rib of the neck band dovetail neatly into the two-stitch bar running between the yarnovers? I had no idea that would happen -- or, actually, that there would be that nifty bar there between the yos at all, actually. Gives me a little shiver. (I know, I'm easy.) Alas, it's the only of the four potential instances of that serendipity --






the rest of them all look like the photo to the right, with a dogleg from the neckband rib into the raglan bar. I considered yanking back (yet again) and redoing the math, but I don't want the neckband any bigger or smaller than it already is, and I couldn't figure out how to make it break correctly, and life is too short. At least the nice one is on the front. And then there's this:

See how the raglan bar thingie is only one stitch wide at the beginning? I don't quite have my mind wrapped around why yet, but I suppose it's because that's the beginning of the round. I'll use the Stephanie Pearl cheat method to create a faux stitch there later, when I'm doing the very nominal finishing that this thing will require.

I was less sure of myself when it came to what to do about this:

See that stray hole, low and to the left? I'm new at yarnovering, I don't know what the hell I'm doing or how to fix it, and I had doubts as to whether this thing would evaporate with blocking, but I was not about to frog a third time unless I had to. So I laddered down to the offending glitch.

Here, enormous gratitude to Elizabeth Zimmerman, whose words in Knitting Without Tears give me heart:

... contrary to superstition, a dropped stitch does not immediately zoom down the bottom of your work like a ruun in a stocking. At the most it will slither down one or two rows, and cling there, moaning piteously, and waiting to be picked up; if it is to descend any further, it must be helped. When you get it to where the trouble is, fix the error, and crochet-hook the stitch up again. Your intelligence will tell you when to hook it to the front and when to the back ....

But would said "intelligence" tell me what to do when yarnovers were involved? For a while, it didn't. And then, somehow, I knew that I needed to ladder down not one stitch but two.

'Twas an alarming sight. But I picked up stitch by stich, trying to figure it out based on what the opposite-side yarnovers looked like, and then I did the second column, and ta-da --














It came out just right, and now I'm roughly back where I was before the first frogging. And I don't really know how or why, but it's fine with me.

(This has just GOT to be the MOST FAScinating post in the history of blogdom. Makes me glad that very few people who know me know I blog.)

Here's the Vintage Velvet, felted:



I think it came out dandy, and I look forward to wearing it once I won't melt in it. Although I'm not absolutely sure I felted it enough, and it has a couple of weird sticking-out things that I'm not sure as to whether they are woven-in ends or worms. And am I supposed to see through it when I hold it up to the light and stretch it the teeniest bit? Still, it feels cool and sinuous and luxe. Ooo-lala. (Thankyou, hon'.)


And for anyone who thought the pooch shots were cute? You wanna see fo-real cute? I give you serious cuteness. Meet Florence Foster Jenkins.