So, I knit a for-now-secret gift for a friend, and it came out so cute that I wanted to knit one for myself and it happened that I ordered more than enough yarn to make another and I figured, may as well do it right away while I still remember all the things I did.
Well, it wasn't right away as first I had to finish the wedding stole, and ha, there is an intarsia section and by the time I got to it, I couldn't really remember what I did.
I've figured it out though - the first time I used the "festive knitting" method of intarsia in the round as described here. However, I didn't do my stranding very well, although I'm not quite sure how this is supposed to be done - it said to keep them loose, which I did, but it meant that the intarsia blocks were all loose around the edges and it was a complete mess. I ended up cutting and tying all the strands so it ended up looking ok (on the outside) but it did not seem like the best way to do this. Maybe I was supposed to catch the strand in a knitted stitch every 2-3 stitches as I would with Fair Isle?
Anyway, this time around, I tried the second method of knitting back and forth and doing a join, only I didn't read the instructions from this page linked above, but from here which did not so clearly explain about making sure the YO is the back stitch when knitting or purling it together with the last stitch of the next round... although I notice it does say k2tog TBL, which I didn't. Bottom line is I was tired and kind of in a rush to finish it and my seam at the join came out horribly! I also made a few mistakes with forgetting to k2tog and also decreasing per the pattern on the front but not on the back. I tried to persevere and not be a perfectionist or get too stressed out (my mantra for knitting)... but in the end I couldn't stand it and ended up ripping it all out and starting over.
Now I'm knitting the front and back separately and will seam them up by hand. Much better! Also, I didn't bother cutting separate lengths of yarn before - I used two ends from each ball of wool and cut one extra length, thinking yeah, it will get tangled but there aren't that many rows. It wasn't a major problem in itself but yes it tangled immensely, and the tangles were so annoying! I think they made me rush even more and make even more mistakes. This time, I cut all my lengths (it helped that I had ripped out so I knew what lengths were needed) and it's going so much better and is also more enjoyable.
The moral of the story is, it's not worth rushing! Isn't there some sort of a proverb that says that? Sort of like "a stitch in time saves nine" but in my case reversed to be more of a warning: "save a stitch and end up doing nine..."
Also, sometimes being a perfectionist is actually less stressful!
Whoa. A lesson hard-learned. Doncha hate that?! But, it's worth learning, I guess, so that it won't happen again :) (voice of experience, here!) Thanks for that cool link on in-the-round intarsia...I need to learn that technique!
Posted by: Aim | Sunday, August 24, 2008 at 11:41 AM
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Posted by: ExtremeYarn | Monday, August 25, 2008 at 05:07 PM