Eighth Time's a Charm

There's not much I won't try in a knitting pattern. 

 I've been knitting for about 30 years and am mostly self taught.  My Granny, who could knit in the dark, tried to teach me when I was 8 or 9 but it didn't stick.  By the time I took it up again 10 years later, she was With Jesus and not much help.  And Luddite Granny, my mum has no knitterly skills at all. So, in days before Google and YouTube help, I was pretty much on my own.  As a result, I really didn't have a clue when choosing a pattern.  If it looked pretty or nice, I'd give it a go  thinking How hard can it be?  It's only 2 stitches right?  I've knit beautiful and intricate Aran knit sweaters, lacy pull-overs, socks.   Only after an unfortunate incident involving a Nordic sweater (remember those with the  3 colour yokes) about 25 years ago have I stayed far, far away from anything involving carrying of the yarn.   If I want colour, it has to be self-striping or an "effect", like these Fair Isle effect hats I made at Christmas.

 

 

So when I saw this pattern in the yarn store, I thought no problem.

 



It's got this tiny 8 row border, 4 rows of which are just knit.  So I cast on the 92 stitches for the back using the thumb method which I don't really like.  It makes the bottom edge a little too loosey-goosey for my liking but the loosness proved necessary as I progressed.

 

In order to make the hole, you have to lift 6 stitches over 1 knit stitch, do a couple of yarn forwards and knit the 1 stitch again.  Hence the need for the looseness. 

 

When I got to the end of this second row, I had only decreased to 52 stitches and I needed to be at 42 stitches.  I don't know what I did wrong so I tinked it back to the beginning and tried again.  Second time, same thing.  Back it got tinked.  Tried a third time.  You know what the definition of insanity is, right. 

 

Third time was not a charm but instead of tinking, I just ripped the whole damn thing out and started from the very beginning.  Casting on 92 stitches again was quicker then lifting all those stitches back over that 1 knit stitch. 

 

Times four, five and six were just more of the same.  By this point, my yarn was getting all splitty and I was beginning to wonder if the knitting fairies were having some kind of joke. Then, because I'm smart like that, I thought I'd just work on a sleeve because it was considerably less than the 92 stitches of the back so maybe I could figure out what was going wrong.

 

At the end of the 7th time, I still had 3 stitches too many.  So close.  After a close and thorough examination of the  knitting, I realized, again because I'm smart like that, I had been doing 2 yarn round needle stitches instead of the yarn forwards.  I had actually been adding when I should have been decreasing.

 

And that, my friends, is why the eighth time's a charm.