I learned a valuable lesson this past Monday. Here’s the back story.
I Hate Seaming
I Hate Seaming
My last blog post concerned seaming–how much I hate it, specifically. I mentioned a project that I was about to undertake, a knit-in-the-round summer top called Seven Sisters Top. I posted a picture of the completed project (hopefully).
Knitting in the round on circular needles allows a knitter to knit a garment with little to no seams, thus sparing me the ugliness of having to seam (sew) pieces of a garment together. There are all kinds of cool tricks that knitters use to knit in the round and avoid those nasty ol’ seams.
Knitting in Circles
HOWEVER, there is also a very important aspect of circular knitting that must be observed. After a knitter casts on the required number of stitches onto the circular needles, she then must join the stitches into a connected circle. But before she can do that, she must make certain that the stitches aren’t twisted around the needle. If they aren’t straightened very carefully, bad things will happen. The knitting becomes twisted into a Moebius and must be removed from the needles. In essence, the knitter must start the project all over again.
(I bet you see where this is going, don’t you?)
Disaster
Soooo…Monday evening, I cast onto my size 7, 32-inch circular needle a total of 192 stitches. Then I laid the knitting on the sofa next to me…while I watched an NBA Playoff game…and proceeded to straighten the stitches and join the work. Or so I thought.
I worked three rows in K2 P2 ribbing. Three rows. 3 x 192 stitches! That’s 576 stitches knitted and purled. About ¼ of the way into a fourth row, I realized I couldn’t straighten the knitting. What the HECK?!?!
You guessed it. While I was engrossed in watching the Miami Heat beat up on the Philadelphia 76-ers, and while I thought I was straightening out the stitches before I joined the knitting to complete a circle, I made a monumental boo-boo. Those 192 stitches were NOT pointed in the same direction, and my lovely sweater bottom ribbing was completely useless. I pulled those stitches off the circular needle (while thinking some rather unladylike words about the whole thing), and then I shoved the whole mess into my knitting bag and watched the game. (It wasn’t even a good game. Okay, well, maybe it was, but I was in such a foul mood that I didn’t care who won.)
Tuesday morning, I sat down at my dining room table with no TV, no music, and no noise whatsoever, and I cast on 192 stitches. I knit and purled one row, and then I laid those needle tips parallel to one another, pointing straight up. I made sure all the stitches were in the center, STRAIGHT this time, and I connected the stitches.
Eureka! Success!
Here is a picture of several rows of successful ribbing, laid out on my dining room table as if to join. Clearly, the knitting is already joined if I can do several rows, but this is what a successful join looks like.
More pictures are forthcoming as I make progress on this sweater.
Happy Knitting!
Anita