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Sunday, October 21, 2012

Christmas in Progress

I should know myself well enough by now to know that a quick and easy knit gets harder if you think it's so quick and easy that you forget to pay attentions.  That's what's been going on with my Mother-in-Law's mini blanket.  The pattern, Radiating Star Blanket by Alexis Layton, is beautiful and simple.  It shouldn't have been a problem.

The first thing I did was cast on over two needles using the long tail cast on.  I do this almost as a rule to make sure my cast on edge isn't too tight.  Well, I got the center star finished and decided that the circular hole in the middle was really big and loose.  I ripped out for the first time and started over, casting on over only one needle.  It looked much better.



I finished the first skein of yarn and the second star pattern about a week ago.  I used a spit join because I hate weaving in ends and kept on going.  I was trucking along and things looked great.  About 14 rows later, I realized that there was a mistake about eight rows back...but I couldn't figure out how that was possible because the pattern seemed to line up.  I dropped about 8 stitches and unraveled and knit them back up correctly.  But now there were really more problems.  I stared for a long time.  I unraveled and fixed a couple of other places.  I looked at the loose stitches and the additional problems.  What had I done?  I had made multiple mistakes on 7 of the 8 repeats.  Ugg.  I ripped back 8 rows and started again.  I finally got back to where I'd ripped out...and found another mistake six rows back.  Luckily, it wasn't too bad, and I was able to fix it without all the ripping back this time.

Now I've marked the beginning of the round, and I will pay more attention--even if I'm watching TV with my husband!