Inspiration
Your Brilliant Mistake
What a difference a week makes!
Thanks to airplane rides to and from Chicago and a satisfying 15-episode binge of The Pitt, I not only recovered a week’s worth of ripped-back raglan rounds on my Waffle Pullover, but I’m now officially so far into the body that I’m at the “I don’t want this book to end” stage. Nearly ready for the ribbing at the hem!
I’m very happy that I ripped back.
The line of make-1-left increases on that one wobbly, waffly raglan is still not perfect, but it’s a respectable journeyman effort and it’s no longer worrying me at all. Sometimes something will block right out!
This beautiful “seam” line at the beginning of the round gives me joy.
Reading the comments on my last post reminded me that making mistakes is as vital to knitting as knitting is itself. All knitters have these high-wire moments and dark nights of the soul. Far from being something to be ashamed of, mistakes should be celebrated.
Tales of knitting gone wrong, and made right, are the knitterly equivalent of the courtroom war stories of my past. As the small and large disasters of my trial career accumulated, I started to actually look forward to going back to the office and regaling my mates with the story of a really good, really bad day. To the victor goes the spoils, but to the person whose line of cross-examination was not allowed goes the story. It’s never just about the mistake; it’s about the way out of the mistake, or through the mistake, or around the mistake. If you’re tired of mistakes, you’re tired of life.
Which brings me to my question for you: what was your biggest knitting mistake? Tell us the tale, and be the hero of the hour.
The first sweater I knit was for my father. I was maybe twelve and only had learned the knit and purl stitches. I had a pattern but had no one to show me how to actually do what the pattern requested so I made guesses and it was a knitted covering of trial and error, ripping back, and rethinking what could that possibly mean. I followed exactly the number of rows stated which worked out okay until the sleevelength. When my father put it on the sleeves were waaaaay tooooo long. I learned several things: a swatch was a pretty good idea; to actually look at and think about what I was doing; and how much my father loved me by wearing that sweater every time he watched his favorite football team play on the television with the sleeves folded over and over.
there are some days when i wonder if my biggest ever knitting mistake was ever starting to knit in the first place!
so there was the the sock where i did the gusset the wrong way – in the stitches that had been left aside while i knitted a heel flap rather than the heel flap stiches.
there have been at least 2 baby cardigans where i knitted 2 left fronts (or it might have been 2 right fronts, you get the idea),
the time i knitted a pair of gloves with fingers and knitted right hand fingers onto the left hand glove and was 3 fingers in before i noticed.
the pair of cowls in a wool that turned out to be too scratchy to go round someone’s neck ( they are still waiting to be frogged/given away/put on the compost pile!)
let’s not mention mis crossed cables, uneven tension on a 2 colour project (and no, blocking didn’t help).
but the worst thing i ever did to a piece of knitting was when i accidentally bundled a Shetland lace shawl that my sister knitted for my first baby into the washing machine with a load of Babygros and vests from baby #3 and put it on a 40 degree C (100 F) full wash. the shawl was originally about 5ft (1.5 m) square , it came out the machine about 12 inches(30 cm) square. 40 years later i still cry to think about it. (and yes, i did confess to my sister who was very forgiving but never knitted another thing for my bairns in good quality wool!).
Oh I feel the pain of that felted shawl from here.
My worst mistake is still sitting in a basket (it is colorful and pretty) silently reminding me of it’s abuse at my hands.
It is the MDK suggested Kiki Mariko rug pattern. I had never steeked but it led me to believe I could. MDK promised if you could cut a atraight line, you could do it. Well….confidently I cut-only to realize the tube spiraled. Nope it wouldn’t unravel, felted as it was, but I cut outside of my steeked area as I went up. Now it has sat waiting for me to repair the sliced bits of rug.
Hey, it’s a rug. Maybe I should use it as is.
Someday I will steek again.
I like knitting for loved ones, friends and babies, but once, in a moment of madness, I agreed to knit a jumper for an acquaintance. Anything you want, I blithely said. She presented me with a huge cone of pale beige 4ply….I knit this thing for possibly eons on tiny needles, and when it was finally done, it was filthy. So I washed it and hung it up to dry on a rack in front of a gas fire, which scorched it. I did manage to get the scorch out eventually and handed it over, with great relief. But this experience taught me that knitting has to have some love in it!
A semi experienced knitter at the time, i was totally taken by a Kaffe Fassett design for which I purchased a shiny Takhi cotton in five gorgeous colors. My intarsia improved as I progressed and about 7 inches into the body it looked good but the inside…well.
I took it to my lys for suggestions from Brigitte, owner and member of my knitting group, the pig knitters (pot luck and knitting, maybe more pigging at times than knitting). MEIN GOTT she screamed, as I had yet to learn about weaving ends in as you go with intarsia. Hundreds? Thousands? of shiny cotton ends.
Cut the remaining bobbins, salvaged the rest for a very cute sweater for a toddler, did not look at intarsia for another twenty plus years.
I used to work for an organization that called mistakes, “opportunities for growth” and my biggest mistake turned out to be just that. It was Andrea Mowry’s “Morning Rituals” sweater, the one with that lovely cabled ribbing, I had completed the bottom cabled ribbing and attached the pocket flaps before I realized one row of two different cables was reversed; I had cabled left instead of cabling right. I had already ripped back a number of rows for a previous mistake and did not want to do that again. So, to Youtube I went to see if it was possible to ladder down and fix the cables. It was and I did. It probably took as long as it would have if I’d just ripped back and began again, but then I wouldn’t have learned a new skill to add to my knitting tool box!
Once that beautiful sweater was finished and blocked, it was a little tighter and a couple of inches shorter than I really wanted it to be. I tried wearing it a few times and did not like the fit at all. I ended up ripping out and re-knitting the entire sweater only this time, I used the lessons and skills I had learned from the first knitting. I got the perfect fit, all cables oriented correctly and a sweater that I love and will wear for many years to come.
I get a lovely cardigan with horizontal Chevron stripes. I didn’t use the exact same repeat of the different colors for the stripes. When I did the sleeves, I started with the wrong color. I knit two sleeves at a time, so they’ll come out the same. It wasn’t until I had completely finished both sleeves that I realized that the stripes were off by one color. So I knitted two more sleeves. I now call it “the sweater with four sleeves.”
It took me 3 attempts to get the yoke of the daytripper cardigan correct. It was my first stranded knitting attempt but really what the Hell! also the first 2 times I had knitted way into the body before realizing Hmmmm something is not right here!
I was knitting a bear – no sewn on appendages-all one piece, was part of a KAL. But my dad was dying I missed some classes. Terribly detailed pattern. I set her aside for some more meditative lessons demanding knitting. But when I picked her up somehow I would end up with the outside instead of the knits. Rip out – back in time out she went and she stayed there – quietly waiting. We moved states. Then a grand baby was coming – she came out from the stash bin. She went to my LYS knitting group – someone observed me and realized I was holding/looking at my knitting wrong hence the reversed stitches. My biggest mistake was not seeking out in person help you don’t always have to figure it out on your own – sometimes you need a human lifeline.
Your final sentence says it all. Isn’t that true of so much of life? We all stumble through, doing the best we can, but the journey is so much more pleasant when we just support each other.
Many years ago, when I was around 20 years old, I knit a pair of Scandinavian colorwork mittens. Only after completing the second mitten did I realize I had knit two right mittens. I had knit the recipient’s name in cuff so I didn’t want to knit two left mittens to make two pair. Instead, I had a tantrum.
I love that you had to go back that far Wendy 😉
I mean that’s almost 10 years ago!
There was the early cardigan sweater that ended up with two right fronts (frogged and not reknit), the cotton sweater for DH that stood up by itself (gauge swatch, what gauge swatch?); and then there is the WIP sweater currently in ‘time out’ due to making the second sleeve decreases in a totally different sequence from the first sleeve decreases, leading to one fat arm and one thin arm (second sleeve frogged).
Errors due to: 1) novice knitting first cardigan, 2) no gauge swatch made, and 3) distracted knitting while watching movies on my iPad.
Have I learned from these? You betcha’!
I will share my mothers story because it is so much better than mine. My parents met in college. After a year or so of dating my mom decided to knit him a sweater vest which was all the rage back in the 30’s.When it came to the shoulders she did the decreases that created the slope of the shoulder in the wrong direction creating little wings that pointed upward. She gave it to him anyway. Dad was a quiet man, and didn’t want to hurt her feelings so he asked another woman to remove the shoulder pads from his sport coat, folded over the “wings” of the sweater vest to take the place of the shoulder pads, and wore the jacket over the sweater. It was more than a year before she knew about this and by then they were planning their future together. They were married for 62 years
I made a Stephen West Shawl that had a 450 stitch brioche section right in the middle. I finished the whole row and realized it was ALL wonky. Spent a day and a half tinking that back. Now, however, I am very proud of that shawl and wear it often. It was worth the cursing and the work!
I make a mistake in everything I knit. Sometimes I fix, sometimes I don’t. If you want perfect go to Kohl’s and buy a mass produced sweater.
Knitting mistakes? I’ve had a few. But my latest big “mistake” can be chalked up to lack of a proper swatch. Oh, I did swatch, after a fashion. But I didn’t wash and block the swatch.
So I knit a whole vest out of no-longer-available Colinette wigwam (a beautiful cotton tape yarn) that I dug out of deep stash. After washing and a tumble in the dryer, it was too short and too tight, and the fabric was too dense. So — yes — I unraveled the whole thing and reknit it at a larger gauge. Much better!
I guess, to look at the bright side, I got double the knitting out of one project.
My biggest, scariest mistake happened yesterday when I left my knitting basket that was.holding my Sabai Top in progress on the floor. I left home to teach a class and while I was gone my iRobot vacuum cleaner tipped my basket and ate my knitting, needles, yarn, cables and all! Disaster!! It took careful untangling, some yarn snipping but after what seemed hours of anxious maneuvering, I freed my project mostly unscathed. Note to self – be present, be mindful and be patient and grateful
I don’t have any knitting mistakes. I have design features!
I have to start this with the caveat that this had nothing to do with the pattern. It’s a great pattern and very fun and easy to make. 10 out of 10. Two thumbs up!
It was my first Shakerag Skirt. I had just gotten my measurements done at Vogue Knitting and was quite pleased with myself. I double checked before I started it and I was spot on. I went ahead and measured a skirt that I really liked (I call it the Kay Rule) and it was much smaller than my measurement (of my actual body) but I blamed that on it 1. not being knit and 2. being old. I cast on for the size that fit my measurement.
My gauge was perfect and I knit the whole damn thing. And it was enormous!! Like circus tent huge. Like I could do that scene in The Nutcracker where all the kids run out from under the skirt. I reknit the whole thing following the Kay Rule and it is a dream. I wear it all the time and get loads of compliments on it.
Lessons learned:
1. My body is an enigma from the neck down (the same thing happened with a sweater a year later.)
2. Do what Kay tells you to do.