Cutting Up

Two months into my Mary Tudor cardigan I thought I had the sleeves done, when I discovered a major oopsie while taking this photo:

Do you see it? (Sleeve cap on the left sleeve, to your right in the photo.)

The chart symbols for two of the colors are two different sizes of circles, not very obvious with the sun in your eyes. I was happily knitting on the front deck, paying attention to the decreases for the sleeve cap (and my exciting audiobook), and didn't notice my mistake, not even when I blocked the sleeves. Since I was already working on the collar when I discovered the mistake, I finished that before ripping out the top of the left sleeve. Here's how the collar looks,

The collar, cuffs bottom border and front bands are all garter stitch colorwork, something I've never done before. It was a bit of a challenge, because when you work back and forth, like the collar and front bands, it's easy enough to knit across the front, but then on the back side, you have to switch the yarns every time you change colors, bringing the old color to the front and the new color to the back. For knitting in the round, like the cuffs and bottom band, you have to purl every other round, exchanging the two yarns every time you work with the other color. I got used to doing this in the round and had some difficulty switching to knitting every row, back and forth. Moving the yarn to the front always seems to trigger the purl impulse. I finally got the hang of it. Here's what it looks like. The wrong side is shown on the right in the photo, and the right side, folded over, on the left. 

Now that I'm done with the collar, I'm reknitting the sleeve cap. Fortunately, I didn't have to take out much. I got ready to reknit the incorrect part of the sleeve cap by picking up the sts on the last correct round. (I'm using two circular needles.)

I have plenty of yarn, so I decided to cut off the incorrect part of the sleeve cap right above the picked-up sts.

I could have just frogged it (rip-it, rip-it, for nonknitters), but I had already blocked the sleeves, which caused the sts to cling to each other, making it slower going, and, as I said, saving this little bit of yarn wasn't important. The red squirrels (Chickarees) are building nests for their babies now, so I'll just let them have it. I've been knitting on the sleeve cap and only have about 2.5" to go to BO. If I need to shorten the sleeves, I'll do it pretty much the same way, except that I'll have to remove the yarn below the length I want. Instead of cutting it off, I'll just snip one strand of each color in the top round I want to remove after picking up the sts in the last correct round. (I'll post photos when I get to that.) You can't frog from where you started knitting up, only from where you stopped knitting down.

In quilting news, Vintage Stitchers met this week at Rebecca's. Rebecca has finished her appliqué table runner. 

Barbara is working on this great peacock appliqué:

She also just finished this great Christmas quilt top:

Carol has finished this great charm quilt:

The back is almost as interesting as the front:

(That stripe is three strips of Kaffe Fassett fabrics.)

Zachary and his family have been watching the World Cup games. I get to post lots of photos of Miss Daphne, but it's hard to get photos of Master Zachary because he's a man with moves. This was a good one, though. Maybe both kiddos will play soccer when they get a little older.

What's on my needles: Mary Tudor cardigan, collar done and reknitting the second sleeve cap.

What's on my Featherweight: Back to Delectable Pathways, still working on the hand appliqué for the last panel.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Finished James Patterson's 3rd Degree and now reading his 2nd Chance, out of order, but that's how they became available from the library through the Overdrive app. Looking forward to Dean Koontz's The City, which comes out tomorrow. Still reading Pursuit and Persuasion by Sally Wright from Book Bub on the Kindle app.

What's my app of the week: Reminders. I tell Siri to remind me to take the yarn out of the freezer after four days. She never sleeps!

What's in my wine glass: Green Fin 2012 California Red

What's my tip of the week:  If you don't have a phone that takes photos, take your camera with you everywhere. You never know when you're going to see something you want to remember! With digital photography, you don't have to worry about wasting film. I even take a photo of the shopping list before I got grocery shopping with DH. That way, we each have the same list. He pushes the cart (he likes to drive), and I go around with a hand basket. We can call each other if we get separated. If I want to have a record of a book, a pattern or a yarn, I can get a photo and look it up later. Also great for candid shots of the pups or local wildlife.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.