Boo boo

So, I made a small boo boo in my tyrolean stockings, but fortunately Kelly Petkun, on a recent Knitpicks podcast, describes how you can fix mistakes, including those in cables, many many rows back by dropping the stitches down and reknitting them back again, thus saving you from ripping back those many many rows.

I was familiar with this technique, but for some reason hadn't previously thought it would work for cables. Besides which, I've only used cables once, in my very first project so I hadn't really thought about it.

What a lifesaver! Although honestly, without this technique, I doubt I would have knit back all those rows. I would have just left the mistake as it wasn't that visible, but it would probably have always annoyed me.

Here is the mistake:

This cable is supposed to be twisted right over left. It's a little strange because it's the only one - all the other 2 stitch cables twist left over right. And I was thinking last night, hmmm, I haven't twisted right over left for a while and so I actually stopped and looked at what I was doing and sure enough, I had reversed it about 24 rows back.

No problem!

I dropped those 2 columns of stitches all the way back down to the error (I think Kelly said something about dropping an extra stitch on either side but I didn't bother with that):

Then I knit those two stitches back up, using the next loose thread up like I was knitting with it in regular fashion - you knit the two stitches from left to right needle as normal, then pass the two stitches back to the left needle, twisting them to the right orientation, and then knit them again.

It was a little fiddly, but it worked like a charm!

There, all better!

Comments

[Emma]

Thanks for showing this fix! It actually gave me the confidence to continue with a project I messed up.

[Jennifer]

I just saw your stockings on Ravelry and followed the link. They're gorgeous! I'm planning to make them myself for the Ravelympics. That fix...you are one brave lady!