Sunday, September 24, 2006

Angels, the Backstory


Angels
Originally uploaded by savtadotty.
For knitters only.

A few weeks ago I thought I'd take an "in progress" picture of Mermaid Girl's Angels. All the pieces except the lacy edging were finished, and what remained was primarily weaving in many lose ends and sewing up the seams. I hate weaving in lose ends, so in true procrastinatorial fashion I sewed up one side seam, hoping to get motivated.

What anyone except me can see from this photo, the two sleeves are not exactly aligned. And I happened to pick the seam you see on the left. Starting from the cuff of the left sleeve, I made it all the way to the bottom past the angels before I got irrefutible proof that the front and the back were not the same length. Well, duh, you say. Of course not.

What to do? In true hacker fashion, I went ahead and picked up all the stitches on the shorter back and knitted an extra two inches to match up with the front. Brilliant! Only when I stitched up the right side seam did the truth emerge. Suddenly, with the addition of the extra two inches, the front became shorter than the back.

My mother's voice came again to haunt me: "To become a knitter, you must learn to rip." Hi, Mom.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The sweater is adorable. Looking at the finished garment, I would never guess the backstory! Your mother's advice was sage...we knitters do a lot of ripping but isn't it worth it?

Fred said...

What's a stitch? :)

SavtaDotty said...

Annie - yes it is worth it. I can feel my mother's gentle approval as I rip away.

Fred - The bouncer shouldn't have let you into this post. I'll have a word with him about that.