Will I ever learn!
Never, never knit to a Christmas deadline!
During the Stay-cation with my grand dogs I set a goal to finish the two kid sweaters I am trying to complete for Christmas. With hours and hours of knitting time available, I felt this goal was do-able. After all - my grand daughter's sweater just needs two short sleeves and 3 buttons. My grand nephew's top down sweater was almost to the point where you split out for the sleeves.
And I have 10 whole days available!! I can do this!!!
Sadly, my left thumb feels different. For me lots of knitting does not create over-use problems in my hands. I feel lucky ... especially when reading about the repetitive use injuries of other crafters. But my grand nephew's project requires more left thumb effort than normal. My thumb is a little cranky right now.
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| Photo Credit: Ravelry.Com Designer's sample |
The pattern is called Miracle Sweater by Nicole Montgomery. I love the gender neutral look of the garment, the dense feel of the fabric created, the jacket-like style, and the unique stitch itself. I also love that the proceeds of the purchased pattern are donated to a charity.
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| Up close Twisted Basket stitch pattern. |
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| My progress to date. Sleeves will need to be picked up and knitting at some point. |
And I didn't. I made a different mistake! You see, the stitches are stacked on top of each other in a very specific order. Within 5 rows I made a stacking mistake - and one whole row along the back between the sleeve sections - was wrong. And it clearly showed! I couldn't unpack even a single stitch successfully and now I had a whole row of stitches that were wrong. Damn.
So I made a creative decision to hide that row of errors under the generous collar by tacking the collar down so the wrong row can't be seen. It was an option I considered before I made the error because the collar had a lot of "bounce" in it and probably wouldn't rest easily on the shoulders when worn without tacking. Now that decision was finalized and it killed two birds with one stone! Excellent!!
Second problem solved (without ripping out my progress.) I plowed on.
But there are limits. At this point, if I cannot fix or hide an error that can only be corrected by ripping out, I will stop this project and choose another pattern ... I don't want to start completely over. Finding this pattern took a lot of time at the beginning. And I still like it.
When the third error rolled around (surprised? ... not me) I somehow miraculously managed to de-construct the stitch - and mostly get it right. Right enough to be acceptable to the casual eye. Not perfect, but acceptable.
Is that the end of the errors knitting this beautiful stitch? No chance - the risk is still very very much there. But if I can avoid the blinding frustration that grows with each error maybe I can avoid pitching this project deep into my trash can. It wouldn't be the first time I pitched yarn, a partially complete project and the pattern into the garbage.
I secretly planned to maybe make this same sweater for my grand daughter at some point. I really love the look of the stitch, and I love my grand daughter beyond all measure, BUT, no second sweater in this pattern for me - I also love my left thumb because without it - knitting would be very very hard.
Finally, there is one other small problem with this stitch. Besides eating up a lot of yarn (which I was prepared for), it eats up lot of time. A . LOT . OF . TIME. In the picture above, the middle white markers show where I began 5 days ago. Each day was about 4-5 hours of knitting. That is 20 to 25 hours of knitting on a child's size 3T sweater. While I was knitting the gauge swatch I could see it was time consuming - but I figured that as I got better with the stitch, I would get faster ... and I did. But now I see how grossly off I was on time needed. I still have 4 inches of body to do beyond the lower edge - and 2 full sleeves!
When I researched this pattern in Ravelry I saw comments like "beautiful," "worth the effort," "heirloom piece," and "appealing." The other observations were "tedious," "time consuming," "patience needed." All the statements are true. My mistake? I put more importance on the positive statements rather than the negative ones.
And my thumb? It cramped a bit this morning. A sign that I am pushing it too much? You betcha! So today I am blogging about knitting and not knitting - giving this vital appendage of my body needed for knitting - my left thumb - a day off!
Did you know that if you are a touch typist like me -
the left thumb does absolutely nothing when typing?
Ha!
12 comments:
I admire your ability to stick with it and handle the pattern as you did.
Even though unfinished, the sweater looks amazing. Bravo.
I have made sweaters that I've torn out almost as many stitches as I completed. It's the challenge of doing a new stitch that is fun but, boy, some are more frustrating than others aren't they. Yours is going to be a beautiful sweater when it's done.
Are those white square thing actual knitting markers? It's been a long time since I've bought anything at a yarn shop.
Knitting "mistakes." Ha! Always an opportunity for at least some creativity. :) The twisted basket stitch is indeed lovely, but after reading your adventures with it, I think I'll pass! I know having thumb problems didn't help. Good progress though and good for you for hanging in there. Hopefully your thumb is on the mend.
I clearly won't be buying THAT pattern!
Love the color and look of that sweater, but I don't think I'll attempt that pattern. I've frogged enough projects already! I was working on a heirloom baby blanket which was taking me forever, and then one day I noticed a hole in it, close to the beginning. The yarn either frayed or a moth had enjoyed it. Not sure which! Needless to say, I unraveled the entire blanket. And the yarn is sitting there waiting for me to be inspired to begin a new project with it.
Yikes, After several tries I would probably find another pattern. Something that takes that much time and constant redoing wouldn't be enjoyable to me, but I love the color. Tedious is too hard to do sipping wine in front of the tv...and that's how the bulk of my knitting is done......mindless most of the time. Good luck to you.
Definitely rest that thumb. I similarly hurt my right thumb last summer and had to take almost 6 months off from any sort of knitting or crocheting. I really only returned to it this summer and even now I must limit my knitting time somewhat and crocheting time is very limited. It seems that I use my thumb much more when crocheting than knitting. That pattern is beautiful, but I totally understand why you don't want to make a second sweater. I hope you don't have to ditch this one after all that effort. Maybe you can take another stab at frogging successfully if there is another mistake. I wish you luck.
Goodness that all sounds way too complicated but I think it will definitely be worth the effort in the end. I touch type but it had never occurred to me that my left thumb is redundant. lol Hope yours is feeling better.
That is a beautiful stitch pattern, wow!
My perfectionism gets the worst of me when I knit. And yet I always seem to choose patterns that are hard for me :)
Happy knitting! <3
Popping back in as I make my blog rounds to say hi, and wondering how your thumb is doing?
That is a tale of woe and great patience! I'm so sorry about your thumb. Both of mine give me trouble, my left worse than my right. I had to stop crocheting altogether b/c it put too much pressure on my thumb.
The pattern is lovely, and that's a beautiful stitch. Isn't it funny how a particular stitch can woo your imagination? Be sure to show us finished pics!
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