It was not without difficulties! It took three and a half hours and should have only took about two. I remembered this time to set the punchcard to move so I didn't get the dreaded stripes and I got up to where I had to shape the neck. This involved splitting the work. I thought that I would leave one side on the needles in the holding position. So to be sure this would work I went back to the trusty manual. Oh no! for that to work I would have to move the russell levers from the ll to l position. I had no idea how this would affect the knitting and didn't want to lose what I had done. So I had a brain wave. Use the ravel chord!
For those who don't know, a ravel chord is a nylon chord that pulls out very easily so you can knit with it to hold stitches. Great I thought, easy peezy! Except having used the chord to manually knit the required stitches onto it.....of which there was only 23, I realised that there was nothing to stop the ravel chord stitches unravelling when I took them of the needles. That's where I think the waste yarn knitting comes in I had read about. I thought it would be easiier to just thread the ravel chord back through the ravel chord stitches to stop them from unravelling. So that's what I did, but it wasn't quite so simple as it sounds. I had to do it while the stitches were still on the needle because of the texture of the chord had I taken them off they would have just unraveled. I got it done though.
This added about an hour to the process.
I casted off the center stitches and proceeded on the rest of the needles to shape the neck edge and the sleeve edge. That went well.
Back to the stitches on the ravel chord.
I managed to get the stitches back on the needles and the ravel chord out and continued on to do the neck and sleeve shaping. Ravel chord is my friend!!!
I was well pleased with myself!
I went downstairs clutching said completed front piece to impress my husband.
He was hungry lol so I stopped and did lunch.
I was gloating about my work and was spreading it out to show him when the glaring error hit me. I had shaped the second side backwards. ie. I had done the sleeve shaping on the neck edge and the neck shaping on the sleeve edge. Arrgghh!!!!
I was distraught but thought about it and realized that I could maybe save it by unravelling the offending side to where I started the neck shaping on the picked up stitches. It was easy to know where that was because I had broken the yarn to start on that section. Phew! I picked up the stitches by threading my new found friend the ravel chord through them first just to ensure they didn't run then transferred them to the machine and completed the shaping the correct way this time.
That took about 30 minutes but it was done. yeah, so now I have the back and the front done.
Next to start on the sleeves.
I spent last night writing out the sleeve pattern longhand on a row by row basis where shaping is involved.
When I started hand knitting again about 5 years ago I realized my ability to remember where I was in a pattern was gone so I write out my hand knitting patterns too and I can mark off the rows as I go.
It takes a little longer but it works for me.
Tuesday and Thursday we are at the VA hospital, today I have to shop so probably Wednesday before I get back to it.
It's still really hot here, still no rain. I got up at 4.30am to go to the bathroom and the a/c was still blasting away. Will have to take out a bank loan to pay this months electric bill!!! But it is nice to be cool indoors. We keep it set at 74F. We would like it a little cooler but are realistic about the cost.
Can't wait for when we can open up the windows again and let the cool fresh air in. Come on Fall!!
An easier way to use the ravel cord to hold the stitches is just to knit it through the stitches while they are on the machine and then put the needles right back into non working position.
ReplyDeleteIf you watch the video I made - Knit Radar Part 5 - which is in the sidebar of my blog you will see what I mean. When I discovered this method it made things so much easier.
On my machine, it says to change the russell levers from ll to l if putting stitches into the holding position. Does that affect the rest of the knitting at all? I was a little reticent to try it and lose the rest of the knitting? Going to watch your video now, it probably has the answers. My machine has the built in radar so your video will help for that to. Thanks for reading my blog.
ReplyDeleteI watched the video and the following one to see how to do it. Thanks so much. I am going to watch more of your videos. You have worked so hard to put up all that info. Great work and thanks again.
ReplyDelete