Monday, March 25, 2013

It Happens To The Best Of Us! Doesn't It?

I worked up a vest in my head then wrote, charted and swatched out a new design for a sweater vest and today was the day to start it.

Should have known as it took me 6 swatches to get it the way I pictured it.  The ribbing was to be a 2 x 2 rib in a 2 x 1 needle arrangement followed by a 5 x 1 ribbed body with a ribbed mitered fold over v-neck.  All this using Tamm 3-ply.

I should have known when I swatched over and over (as the yarn was knitting loose) but I had T8 stuck in my head from my previous project (here).  On the first few swatches I noticed the ribber was knitting a bit looser than the MB (common) so I dropped to T7 on the ribber.  Tried 1 x 1 rib but again too loose and wiggly & I did not want it to pull in very much so instead of dropping the tension I decided on the 2 x 2.  Looked great.

My swatches are the usual 60 stitches wide (actually 62 due to needle arrangement) x 40 rows. Since this was a ribber project I had plenty of weight on the 62 stitches.  Washed, blocked and dried the swatches.  Get my gauge and built the pattern and schematic.

Ready to go...I knit the below ribbing over 162 needles, 28 rows, T5/T4 (taking pictures as I knit) then transferred all the ribber stitches to the MB then set up for the 5 x 1 ribbing.   Changed the tension to T8/T7 and off I went...

Then "it" happened!  My ribber stitches started to not catch in the needle hooks and just sat on top; a few dropped.  Mind you I had 5 large weights on the comb along with 2 small weights.  What I should have done (as I have done before) with a large ribber tension is to pull gently down after each row on the ribber comb.  Not wanting to try to fish out the dropped stitches I cut the yarn and the result is in picture 3 below.

My swatches were fine as only 60 stitches with three large weights.  Not lesson learned, lesson reminded...have to rethink this one.  Perhaps I will wait for my cones of cotton/acrylic to arrive.

2 x 2 Ribbing In A 2 x 1 Needle Arrangement

Ribbing Completed - All Stitches Transferred to MB
Reminder



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