After dinner, I sat down for a little pre-soccer-game knitting. I pulled out the skull-a-riffic chart, gave my marking Post-it note a reinforcing rub, and tucked into the next row. About 10 stitches in I felt that something was amiss. "Woah! This is totally the wrong row! I almost skipped an entire row!"
Glad that I discovered my mistake only 10 stitches into the row of 128, I tinked my way back to the beginning. *phew* After adjusting the Post-it (silly, slippy Post-it!), I tucked in yet again.
... Fast forward to stitch 116.
"Humph. Funny how I'm knitting the same sequence as the previous row, like, almost the whole time. Oh... actually for all of these stitches. And those ones too...? Funny, I didn't really notice that in the chart. And don't really see it in the chart now, either..."And, uhm, yes. I did not, in fact, almost skip a row. Rather, I almost didn't make the mistake of repeating the last row I'd knit. But instead I did make that mistake. In fact, I made a huge, conscious point of making that mistake. Hooray for me!
Most fortunately, I've thoroughly scrutinized the pattern and think I can get away with repeating this particular row. It'll just make my skulls a bit taller (adding a row between the nose hole and the eyes). It will also turn my diamonds a bit wonky and create an irregular square on the border at a regular interval. I think so long as it's consistent I'll be okay. Plus I'm making it my own. And pirates aren't governed by rules. *additional disclaimers and justifications as well!*
Due to brother-in-law's aforementioned large head, I think the resulting extra three rows will be okay. Oh, did I say extra three rows? I meant extra two rows. Because although the skull pattern repeats three times, I inexplicably left out a solid row of main color knitting early on in the pattern. I think I was just overly excited to get going on all that fair isle goodness.
Lessons learned:
- stockinette is rolly, and those stitches on your needles really do count as a row
- don't be so excited to start the fun part of a pattern that you forget a crucial boring part (my skulls are growing directly out of an ornamental border now, like some sort of preternatural Viking overlords)
- pirates don't need rules
4 comments:
Your adventuresome ways with knitting are totally giving me the courage I've needed to try new things. I've known how to knit for about five years now, but never ventured beyond the three stitches I'd learned to start: stockinette, garter, and rib. The more I branch out, the more I realize the things I thought were so complicated aren't really all that complicated at all. YAY KNITTING!!
YAAAAAAAY! You made my whole morning by A) visiting our little blog, and B) calling me adventuresome! Glad it's catching. And there's such a wonderful community of knitting gurus out there willing to help, which is nice for people who make *ahem* modifications. :0)
Oh, I've been keeping up with your blog! I've been feeling all left out since you and Chels have abandoned Vox. *sniffle*
Abandoned is such a strong word. But yeah. Pretty much. :0(
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