- Pullover assembly
I plug all my garment measurements and stitch gauge into my spreadsheet. Taking all the resulting numbers I hand write a pattern.
For the shoulders on the back of the current piece, I cast off in four steps. For the front, in error I write only three of these steps. Knitting the sample I come to these three steps. This doesn’t add up to the correct number of stitches. Do I check what happened for the back? No, I change it so the three steps add up to the correct number of stitches. I line up the shoulders to sew them together. Hang on, these don’t match!!! What have I done??? Finally I check to see what happened for the back. So for each front shoulder I have to un-knit 5 short rows and redo to match the back. Thankfully this is fairly quick and easy to recitfy. Relief!!!!
What are my options?
a) Don’t make any mistakes when writing out your pattern. – Not likely or even possible
b) Check the written pattern against all your numbers over, and over, and over……. – Yes, but that won’t catch every mistake
c) Knit your sample – Yes, this is where it all comes together. It’s not until you actually use the pattern that mistakes will become glaringly obvious
The pieces are finished and I’ve begun sewing together. The shoulders are sewn and one of the sleeves is in.
For the moment, I’ve had the time to approach my design and sample knitting as “work”. When my “work” is this enjoyable, I feel uncomfortable spending time on it. Everyone else is working and I’m having fun!!! That can’t be right. One of the benefits of this is that when I’m feeling under the weather, this is work I feel capable of getting on with. I sometimes feel that I achieve more when I’m sick than when I’m well. I can ignore household tasks and get on with my project! It’s not my fault, my brain made me do it. 🙂
WakefulKnits 