I’m a hard knitter

Posted on | March 12, 2009 | 14 Comments

You know the phrase, Work Smarter, Not Harder?  If it were applied to knitting, I’d be a hard knitter.  I can knit stitches like there’s no tomorrow, if it’s speed you’re looking for, I’m your gal.  I’m not the fastest knitter by far, but I daresay I’m pretty productive.  But productivity doesn’t really matter if the object you’re producing isn’t useable.

I want to be a smart knitter.  I admire smart knitters because their time and talent are spent on projects that have been thoroughly examined and considered – before the first stitch is cast on.  Margene is the smartest knitter I  know.  Elspeth is a smart knitter too, she had a long post about the process she goes through when considering a pattern, she reads it from start to finish, she identifies any potential problems and decides if she can resolve them or if the pattern is best left to other knitters.  I read that post a good while ago and thought, ‘I could learn so much from this, this is what I need to be doing.’ 

Yet, I continue to cast on blindly.  Knit on blindly.  I have a lot of faith that things will work out in the end, despite history proving otherwise.

Why these ruminations on a Thursday morning? you may be wondering.  Last night I continued my raglan decreases until I had something resembling the proper number, cast off, knit the button bands, tried on the sweater and discovered it’s big.  Too big.  About 4″-of-positive-ease-on-the-sleeves big.  ‘That’s okay,’ I thought (ever the optimist), ‘I bet the collar will pull it all together!’  I picked up 106 stitches for the collar and started following the directions.

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I’ve included a picture of the page because I wanted you to see how the pattern reads, what the collar looks like, and the abundance of white space at the bottom of the page.  I started knitting as per the pattern instructions.  I quickly realized that there should be a line in there that says “Knit collar for x inches and begin short rows” or “Knit collar to designed length and begin short rows as follows.”  Why isn’t that line in there?  There’s plenty of room!  If I knit the pattern as it reads, the collar would be four rows long and that’s obviously incorrect. 

*ETA* Okay, I’m a doofus and can’t follow directions!  Thank you Meg, for explaining the pattern to me!  I should know better than to post before coffee.

Which is why I need to be a smart knitter.  Read the patterns first.  Several times, if necessary, while fully caffeinated.  Identify potential problems at the onset, instead of the end of a project.  Most times, my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants attitude has worked out fine.  In college, I didn’t study as much as I probably should have because I could write a coherent essay and that goes a long way with professors.  Sometimes it works with knitting and sometimes it doesn’t.

What will I do now?  I don’t know.  The hard knitter in me says to finish out the collar (guessing at the length since the pattern doesn’t specify) and maybe, somehow, the collar will pull the whole thing together and it won’t look slouchy.  Comfortably big I’m okay with, slouchy I’m not.  The smart knitter in me says to frog it.  Start over.  Knit a smaller size.  Maybe even knit a different pattern since I have a bad taste for this one now.  I don’t know.

What would YOU do?

Category: February, NaKniSweMoDo

Comments

14 Responses to “I’m a hard knitter”

  1. Meg
    March 12th, 2009 @ 9:13 am

    I could be wrong, E, but looking at the pattern, I think you’ll actually work 52 or 54 short row rows. If you start by working 26 sts, then work the center 54 sts, wrap and turn, and “repeat from * until all sts are worked”, you’ll be adding one stitch on each row, and it should produce a pretty deep shawl collar.

  2. Imbrium
    March 12th, 2009 @ 9:22 am

    What would -I- do, or what do I think -you- should do?

    I don’t have a lot of faith in the idea that the collar will pull it all together. Four inches of ease is pretty big. I think the smartest thing to do would be to frog it and make it smaller, if you can face trying the pattern again, or just frog it and move on to something else.

    Now, if I were in your place, I would almost certainly go boldly forward with the collar, find that it’s still too big, convince myself that I’ll wear it sometime, and let it molder in the closet. But I’m not very smart. :)

  3. margene
    March 12th, 2009 @ 9:27 am

    Meg reads the pattern the way I do. Go forth as it’s written. By studying a pattern at arms length and then up close and personal, from all angles, I end up with few surprises and consider pitfalls ahead of time. Ravelry has been a great help as you can see what other knitters have faced and deal with it as you go. Experience is the best teacher, however.

  4. Carrie
    March 12th, 2009 @ 9:30 am

    What Im and Meg both said. (I think you’re missing the extra PM after the note about seeing short rows on page whatever.) If you’re moving the marker and knitting short rows to the marker each time, it should work out.
    But I think Im’s right, and the collar will probably not pull the sleeves in four inches. :\

  5. Anne
    March 12th, 2009 @ 9:45 am

    The collar, sadly, won’t pull the neckline in very much, as it folds over and only frames the opening (unlike…say.. if you knit it in garter stitch as just a small “trim”-type collar). The pattern has you use up all the stitches in short rows (and it will be….oh…. perhaps 4-1/2 to 5 inches deep when you are done).

    I still think the problem is in the decrease numbers, rather than you or the collar, per se. For what that’s worth.

  6. Cookie
    March 12th, 2009 @ 9:57 am

    I love arriving after all the smart people.

    Honey, the sweater doesn’t fit the model. That would make me wonder if I could ever get it to fit me. It also makes me wonder what the designer was really thinking.

    Oh, and the first step to becoming a smart knitter is to realize there is such a thing and the desire to become one. Or so I’ve heard. ;^)

  7. Tami
    March 12th, 2009 @ 10:11 am

    I must be a hard knitter too then because I’d be knitting along like you have trusting that the designer had properly tested out their pattern.

    I’d skip the collar and start frogging.

    You know posts like these are going to scare me away from trying out sweaters for people over the age of crawling. ;^)

  8. Lynn in Tucson
    March 12th, 2009 @ 11:47 am

    _I_ would throw it in a basket in disgust (or leave it on a side table, more likely) for a year or more, then come back to it, wonder what in the hell it was that I had thought wrong with it, finish the remaining ten minutes of work and call it done.

    (Ask me how I know.)

    But that’s just me.

  9. Suzanne
    March 12th, 2009 @ 12:04 pm

    I’m not a smart knitter either unfortunately. *sigh*

    Personally, I would frog and find another pattern.

  10. kmkat
    March 12th, 2009 @ 3:57 pm

    *I* would cast on for something else, and this would sit in a knitting bag until hell froze over. But what *you* should do is finish the sweater and give it to me. I’m pretty sure that 4″ of positive ease on you would translate to a lovely fit on me ;-)

  11. Diane
    March 12th, 2009 @ 4:34 pm

    Ha! I was thinking much the same as kmkat, along the lines that “it’ll fit somebody.”

    For what it’s worth, I’d give it a time out. When you come back to it, you’ll be less emotionally invested and can decide what you really want to do: frog or continue.

  12. Jen
    March 13th, 2009 @ 7:48 am

    I personally would most likely stomp my feet, curse the designer and all her future offspring (kidding) – (kind of), and then I would shove it in a corner to forget about while I cast on something familiar and soothing to my knitting wounds.

    Honestly, in the picture, doesn’t it look kind of slouchy on the model, too? I mean, to me it kind of looks pretty big on her. You know, that kind of comfortable big, like wearing your boyfriend’s sweater or something.

  13. cyndy
    March 14th, 2009 @ 6:29 am

    Interesting how knitting teaches us things about ourselves….I’ve learned patience in the face of frustration from my knitting…and still that does not always work.

    If it were me, I would probably put it in a basket and think about it for a time, wait until I’m in the middle of a cleaning frenzy, and then hide it somewhere I can’t remember–that way, (when I finally found it) I would be so happy to see it that I would knit merrily along until it was finished. If at that point, it didn’t fit me–I would give it away to a person that looks like the model in the pattern photograph.

  14. Janice in GA
    March 14th, 2009 @ 11:51 am

    Well, FWIW, I don’t think I’ve ever read through a whole pattern before starting a project in my life. When I try to do that, all the written stuff just blurs together in my brain and I get only a small idea of what’s going to happen.

    But I’m one of those people who understands more by seeing and doing than by reading. And I don’t mind ripping out and starting over either. Which is a good thing, given my approach to patterns! LOL