By: pamgrushkin
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I know I dropped that stitch somewhere around here.

Tuesday’s Stitch and Chat was fraught with dropped stitches and incomplete stitches. The problem with fixing mistakes is that you have to make them repeatedly to learn how to fix them.  Luckily we drop stitches repeatedly and get ample practice.  Here is a link to common knitting mistakes and how to fix them.
If you want, you can knit a swatch with leftover yarn and make deliberate mistakes to practice fixing them. (Stitch and Chat students, bring it in with you to class and we can work on it together.)
 

Rosie dropped a couple of stitches and had a couple of incomplete stitches in her projects.  She had several opportunities to practice picking up stitches.

Calann had some difficulty turning the heal of the socks she was knitting.  It turned out that she was following the directions for the wrong size.  She has knit this pattern so many times, it was hard to discern the right size a midst all the faded pencil marks of past socks knit.

 

She started knitting The One & Only Morehouse Alligator Scarf. She likened it to a Picasso painting.  Nothing was where it is supposed to be. In this picture you are looking at the beginnings of the snout.

 

I know Christmas is looming when I see Mallory. Over the past couple of years she has been knitting stockings for her whole family.  I think this is #5.  While switching colors she also had dropped a couple of stitches and had a couple of incomplete stitches. 
Somehow we got on the topic of the timely finishing and gifting of hand knit items.  We wondered if Emily Post had a crafters version specifying the period of time before a gift is late.  Mallory told us a story of how she had finished a (couple’s) wedding gift when they had their first baby! I don’t see anything wrong with this. 

Carol, wanted moral support for putting stitches back on the needle. This is the Enchanted Forest Cardigan. She had a mis-stitch and had to rip back a few rows. This is the second time she has knit this sweater.  The first time being 23 years (after the she knit the christening gown and before the christening). She washed the first sweater so many times it looked worn.

Sometimes when you are returning stitches to the needle (if you’re nervous or the yarn is slippery) get them on any which way – whether they are split, facing the wrong way, whatever.  Then go back across the row and right the wrongs. You want to take out stitches as if to purl, meaning insert your right hand needle into the stitch as if your going to purl and pass it from one needle to the next.  Make sense?

For Carol’s next knitting adventure, she is going to knit this sweater from Knitting Block by Block by Nicky Epstein. The sweater is knit entirely in blocks.  We are both excited about it.

The yarn she’s using is Plymouth Select Worsted Merino (Worsted: 100% Merino, 219 yards).

 Mary Ellen finished her first Building Block square.  Well done. The yarn is Plymouth Worsted Merino Superwash (Worsted: 100% Merino, 219 yards).

Cornelia had a plan for the day:
1. Finish her poncho (which she did).
2. Get daughters back from finisher and add fringe (that happened Wednesday).
3. Swatch with Ensemble Light for something that is not a poncho.
She has knit three ponchos in in super bulky yarn over the past month!

 

She looked fabulous in her CustomFit sweater.  I love seeing people where their finished knits with pride (and joy),

 

Trammi shared her progress on her Outline. I like the color-play between her yarns.  There is a mixture of hand dyed and regular dyed yarns. The variegated yarn picks up the colors in the solids.  She also finished the body of her Essence Pullover Sweater in Tahoe (Aran: 32% Nylon, 27% Wool, 25% Alpaca, 16% Yak, 179 yards). It was time to learn the twisted rib pattern for the bottom.


Jane picked up and knit one border to her sweater coat. She learned the knitted cast on for when she makes the button holes on the other border.

Allison wanted to understand how the stitch repeat work out in The Burrow.  We worked out the math together.  If (at the row in question) there were a total of 40 stitches and you subtract the12 border stitches it equals 28 remaining stitches to incorporate the pattern.  Divide 28 stitches by the 4 stitch repeat and you get 7. The pattern repeat is 7.  This is compounded by the fact that there are two sides/charts for the top down shawl.

Cindy is not familiar with circular needles so we worked on reading her row. She has is knitting with very difficult yarn.  It’s hard to tell the knit side from the purl side.

In the end we restored all the stitches to their proper places with a collective sigh of relief and we went on to knit another row.