When Good Knits Go Bad
I don't know why, or how, but for some reason, the knitting mojo loves to go from good to bad, then sometimes, to downright ugly. There is no pattern for it, nor are there warning signs. No, it all happens in an instant - one moment you're zooming along, and the next it seems you can't make a purl stitch if your life depended on it.
Things are in the ugly phase here.
It all started this past week. I was working on the blanket for Baby Bean as I had been in the week prior. Then I noticed it - I only had 110 stitches on my needles. That couldn't be right, since I had started the row with 120. I frogged back the row, recounted, got 120, then worked the row again. 110 stitches. I frogged back and tried again - same result. I frogged back two rows and recounted, then tried again. I rechecked the pattern for errors and found none. I knitted some more, yet continuously got 110 stitches.
So I frogged. And frogged. Only now, after again passing the 'problem' row, have I discovered it - I'm still getting 110 stitches every row. Either I'm missing stitches as I'm frogging back, or... doubt crept into my mind. Perhaps I was wrong, and I hadn't cast on 120 stitches. A search for the paper I wrote my number on was unsuccessful.
*sigh* I plan to go back two more rows, if even that, and see what I get. If it's 110 stitches, I'm moving forward. Guess I won't be giving this to my friend during her visit after all.
Which leads me to my second project - a washcloth. Yes, a washcloth. I've been using a pattern I found on Knitty to make them, tweaking a little so they won't have the stockinette block to embroider words on later. The first washcloth flew off the needles within a day - success!
Should have known, right?
I went with another stitch pattern for the second washcloth. Things were going fine, until I ran out of yarn four stitches out of the cast-off. Frog. Next came a series of false starts and unsuccessful tweaks to the pattern. So here I am, five attempts later, with nothing to show but a ball of yarn that is a mess (cotton does not knit well, least not when it's been reknit four times).
Two projects on the needles - one being tinked back, the other needing two rows tinked back because I got my rows mixed up with the pattern and instead of beginning with "slip 1, knit 2, pass slipped stitch over both knit stitches, yarn over" I started with the yarn over, leading to my having an extra stitch - something I didn't realize until after I had finished not only that row, but the next one.
There's one thing I know, though. Knitting mojo is a fickle creature. At the point when you think there is no return, hope comes back. Sometimes it just takes some tough love.
Things are in the ugly phase here.
It all started this past week. I was working on the blanket for Baby Bean as I had been in the week prior. Then I noticed it - I only had 110 stitches on my needles. That couldn't be right, since I had started the row with 120. I frogged back the row, recounted, got 120, then worked the row again. 110 stitches. I frogged back and tried again - same result. I frogged back two rows and recounted, then tried again. I rechecked the pattern for errors and found none. I knitted some more, yet continuously got 110 stitches.
So I frogged. And frogged. Only now, after again passing the 'problem' row, have I discovered it - I'm still getting 110 stitches every row. Either I'm missing stitches as I'm frogging back, or... doubt crept into my mind. Perhaps I was wrong, and I hadn't cast on 120 stitches. A search for the paper I wrote my number on was unsuccessful.
*sigh* I plan to go back two more rows, if even that, and see what I get. If it's 110 stitches, I'm moving forward. Guess I won't be giving this to my friend during her visit after all.
Which leads me to my second project - a washcloth. Yes, a washcloth. I've been using a pattern I found on Knitty to make them, tweaking a little so they won't have the stockinette block to embroider words on later. The first washcloth flew off the needles within a day - success!
Should have known, right?
I went with another stitch pattern for the second washcloth. Things were going fine, until I ran out of yarn four stitches out of the cast-off. Frog. Next came a series of false starts and unsuccessful tweaks to the pattern. So here I am, five attempts later, with nothing to show but a ball of yarn that is a mess (cotton does not knit well, least not when it's been reknit four times).
Two projects on the needles - one being tinked back, the other needing two rows tinked back because I got my rows mixed up with the pattern and instead of beginning with "slip 1, knit 2, pass slipped stitch over both knit stitches, yarn over" I started with the yarn over, leading to my having an extra stitch - something I didn't realize until after I had finished not only that row, but the next one.
There's one thing I know, though. Knitting mojo is a fickle creature. At the point when you think there is no return, hope comes back. Sometimes it just takes some tough love.