Yeah you read that right. This week I had to rescue my knitting with a pair of scissors. Good news: I finished the pair of My Cup of Tea fingerless mitts in bright pink. Bad news: the cast on edge was uncomfortably tight. Throughout the entire project I had just told myself, nah it’ll be fine. Tight is good, they’ll stay on better.
Yeah tight is fine but too tight is not fine. So I finally bound them off and tried them on. Too tight was the verdict.
I had known what I was going to have to do for awhile but was avoiding the idea. I needed to cut off the cast on edge and bind off with a stretchy bind off. I watched a few videos. These, although very helpful, did not make me feel much better about the fact I was taking sharp implements to my knitting.
I put in my needles 2 rows above the cast on and very carefully cut 1 thread in the cast on. I carefully teased out the cast on 1 stitch at a time. Finally I got to a point that looked like all the stitches were even and I did a stretchy bind off.
This took me TWO!!!! hours to do 1 of the mitts. I was working on the other one and was halfway through the bind off when I realized something. I was on the wrong end!!! Ugh I just redid the bind off that was perfectly fine to begin with instead of fixing the tight cast on. So now I had no more patience and was out of time for the evening and I had just 1 mitt fixed. Tomorrow night I will finish them…maybe. If my patience has returned.
What I learned
- Yes you can cut you knitting and not ruin it.
- It is a time consuming process.
- It takes infinite patience.
- You need really good lighting.
- If you don’t love it now, rip it out instead of having to cut it at the end.
- This process was not steeking. I still want to try that. Steeking is also cutting your knitting but usually you have planned for that process when starting your project.
- ?
In other Knitting news.
CowlThis week I got a ton done. I finished a jumbo cowl. It was my first foray into knitting with such chunky yarn that is the current fad. It was fun and fast although too expensive for me to make it a super common occurrence. Blowing through $25 of yarn in an hour was a little scary. It was like knitting with thick pencil roving. The pattern I used was called Marshmallow Fluff. It’s really cute and looks great with the Malabrigo Rasta yarn I used. A good part of this project is that I had to buy new needles because who just has size 15 needles laying about. The needles I bought were the lykke driftwood needles and they were spectacular. So beautiful and lovely to use. I’m definitely buying the interchangeable set soon.
I am even going to do one more jumbo project partly because someone asked me to make them one of those huge scarves and partly because I want to use these needles again. I owe that person them massively for helping me with the wedding and it’s an easy project so I’m happy to do it.
The Braid of Jade (lavender) hat in the yak Merino blend is basically done. I need to weave in ends and make a pom-pom. It’s been sitting in the corner for a little bit because I haven’t been in the finishing mood. I am hoping to have a finishing party sometime soon because I have a lot of it to do before Christmas.
Morgan’s cowl is halfway through the kitchener stitch. I love doubled cowls because they are so warm but the mile of kitchener stitch at the end is exhausting. I did about half last weekend and I’m hoping to finish the other half this next weekend. It’s gorgeous and I’m a little jealous that I’m giving it to him. Hopefully I’ll make something for myself that gives me as much joy as that cowl gives Morgan.
Work has finally gotten into a serious lull. So my knitting brain has been a little hyper-active lately. That’s all this week.
Till next we meet.
S