Lace surgery, part deux

Wow! You all! Thanks for all the kind words! But it really looks way more impressive than it is. All lace surgery really takes is some patience and a towel to wipe your sweaty palms. Once you get past the shock of ripping the lace out, this method is very straightforward!

When I first tried fixing lace mistakes, I didn't pin them and I usually got messed up with the yarn overs. Yarn overs twist two rows of yarn together in such a way that it is difficult to differentiate between rows. Which brings us to my biggest problem: joining the already knitted section of lace with the newly knitted section without twisting the yarn together and mixing up the rows. Am I making sense? I hope?

So here's the process I followed to make sure that I didn't twist those rows into the wrong order! First, I looked at the piece of lace and figured out exactly what needed to be ripped in order to fix the mistake. I made sure no other stitches would be dropped in the process (I put point protectors on my needles) and I ripped those rows back one by one, making sure I could tell the order of the yarn strands by pinning them out. I put the stitches on the dpn and grabbed my chart to compare to the mess patient. I wanted to be sure not to put in extra yarn overs, so I compared the edge stitches particularly carefully. I recognized that the odd tangle on either side of the ripped area:

resulted from knitting yarn overs together with other stitches on subsequent rows, so I knew that the edge stitch in the ripped area was not a yarn over. That meant it was a k2tog or an ssk. I counted the stitches across and determined the exact spot that I had ripped. I marked it on my chart. This is the area I re-knit:

As I re-knit the piece, I checked to make sure that I was, indeed, not missing a yarn over. As you can see here:

the yarn over looks totally normal when the row is knit across. After that, it was only a matter of following the chart for every row. Kind of a pain, but not terrible. The chart is pretty straightforward. And with the pins holding the rows, I even left part of it over night when the light got bad, and picked it up again in the morning. This is really, totally, something you all can do. The pins make a giant difference! And even without caffeine, no children, spouses or pets were harmed during the process. :)

I hope I made sense. But if not, please feel free to ask questions! You can all do this!

Travelin'

(Note to Teresa: got your address and will ship your book asap!)


I don't do much of it (traveling that is), but I always love going to Minneapolis for Yarnover! This year I also taught at 3 Kittens the Friday before Yarnover. Bear with me. This is a super picture heavy post and I still didn't get pictures of so many people!
Laura from 3 Kittens picked me up at the airport and she, Cecilia and Janine took me out for dinner at the wonderful Twin City Grill at The Great Mall of America. I had the Walleye, like a good little tourist. It was amazing! We split a gigantic piece of chocolate afterwards. It was so gigantic, in fact, that each of us basically got a full piece. It was also delicious. I am still drooling over it.
Afterwards, we walked around the Great Mall.

Yes, that is an amusement park. It is in the center.

Here you can see the top of the Ferris Wheel. Insane.

Here are Laura, Cecilia and Janine. I made them pose with SpongeBob. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
The next day it was off to 3 Kittens, a beautiful and welcoming shop, one of about 30 - yes, 30 - in the area. Our people are strong in Minneapolis.

The classes were actually at the Mendoberri Restaurant, diagonal to the shop.

The food and ambiance were wonderful, and I have to say that Laura and my two angels, Janine (yes - I had an author as a class angel - is this not cool?!)

and Cecilia, made me feel like royalty. I loved every minute of being there, meeting people who I had only known virtually, and teaching. So a giant thank you to my class

and to 3 Kittens! 

After my classes, Janine and her mother Rosemary - who has taught half of Minneapolis to knit and actually took my classes! - drove me over to the meet and greet dinner at Yarnover. I'm afraid I was a little brainless at that point, and didn't take my camera iPhone out.
Next morning was Yarnover and classes! First thing in the morning? It was lace surgery. Thankfully, I think we had all had our coffee. :) Look at the surgeons at work!

Isn't this great?

I always have a great time teaching the lace surgery. :)
After class, I wandered a bit and look what I saw!

A Calliope's Odyssey on the hoof! It turned out to be my online friend Gwen, but I didn't know it until she came by to visit and show me her gorgeous shawls

Snowangel and KnittingKathy came by too!

The green shawl on the left is my spring club shawl and Susan was the first to finish! Kathy is wearing a Taygete. I loved seeing people enjoying their shawls!
After lunch, I taught my Bijouterie earrings from Knitty. After a little initial learning curve, we had a great class with lots of fabulous earring! Just look!

Aren't they awesome!? The last pair shown was the first pair finished, btw. A speed demon!
Can I just say that Yarnover is fabulous? If you ever have the chance to go, grab it!
That evening was the teacher/volunteer dinner which I absolutely love. It gives us all a chance to chat a bit after a successful event. I missed so many great pictures, but here are three of my favorite people. I love this series of The Rainey Sisters and Anne Hanson.

We were having great time. :) Tomorrow: super fantastic yarny goodness from Minneapolis!

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. :)

inattention: discuss(t)

I always have a project going that involves lots of mindless knitting. This is the one I take in cars, the one I sit with while watching a movie. This is the one that makes me less fidgety. But sometimes this "mindless" sort of project backfires. And sometimes it backfires in a very big way. Following is a tale of woe. It may be a little too much for you, and you should be advised that this is not for the faint hearted: those who shrink from the sight of yarny entrails stretched across a floor.

It all started so well. I was loving the drape of the tml and the color. The lace stitch pattern is one of my very very favorites.

I was enjoying it so much that it was flying off the needles. I knit on it while working on my Craftsy class and the last patterns from my Y3 eBook. It was my calm knitting when I was uptight, and I loved the way it was draping on my dress mannequin. I was so excited to look forward to a nice light lacy and simple sweater just for me me ME!

When I got back from shooting my Craftsy class in Denver, I pulled my leafy sweater out and finished off one of the sleeves. It was super relaxing after a full week.

I was particularly loving the underarms and the way the raglan sleeves joined into the body.

I picked up the stitches on the other armhole and somehow it seemed tighter than the first sleeve. I knit a little further until I couldn't convince myself any longer that my gauge had changed that much.

It was starting to be a little less relaxing. But I still was deeply in love with the sweater.

I counted stitches on the sleeve. Then I counted them again and again; I had one less motif on the second sleeve. Gah! I thought, disbelievingly. This could not be happening to me!

I still thought I could salvage part of the sweater, and maybe even make it a bonus learning experience like my lace surgery posts here and here. I ripped up to the armholes, because sometimes you have to do that.

That's when it really hit me. It wasn't that I had cast on the wrong number of stitches below the armholes. There were four motifs at the top of the first shoulder.

And three motifs at the top of the second shoulder.

Need I say what ensued? I took a deep breath.

I ripped.

I tried to tell myself I was happy that I didn't have to cast on again.

But I wasn't really that happy.

It went into hibernation.

Sometimes it just doesn't work out, and no amount of chocolate or surgery will help.

I've pulled it out again and I'm looking at it sideways. It hurt me once, you know, but I've gotten over a lot of it.

Knitting gods willing, I will have a nice sweater for Stitches West. I will be lighting a candle. Perhaps several.

And if you've made it this far? You deserve a gratuitous shot of Petunia with her new haircut.

Isn't she cute?