Lace Surgery

Important note: next time you go off caffeine, don't knit lace for at least a week.

Exhibit A:

16 rows of screw up! So.

There was nothing to do but rip it down within the repeat. I always try this once at least. If it doesn't work, then I rip the whole rows. I whipped out the foam core, my double points and the pins.

I chose not to rip the entire repeat, but rather did just the affected area. I took the lace off the needles and put point protectors on the ends of my working needles (very important!).

I began carefully ripping row by row and pinning each length of yarn as I did. This is an important step when there are so many rows to knit back up. It is easy to lose track of the working yarn when you rip yarn overs.

At the last row I intended to rip, I took out one stitch at a time, putting each stitch carefully on a double pointed needle.

I began with US 6s, and then recalled how difficult it is using the same size as the working needles, and so I switched to US 2s. The smaller needle size left more play in the yarn and made the process much much easier.

I took out my chart and located the problem area (boy, it looked huge!). And then I took in the full impact of the situation.

I started knitting.

Row by row.

As I went along, I evened out the stitches at the end of each row.

I knit each row from left to right right to left (caffeine issues again - thanks Susan!) - much easier to do when everything is pinned out, but requiring constant futzing with tension at each end of the affected area (sounds important, eh? "affected area" Hee).

I knit some more.

I evened out stitches.

I knit.

And then it was time to put it all back on the working needles. Yay!!!

I had a pile of pins.

And a fixed lace project!

And I'm even starting to get used to being caffeine free. Sort of. :)