Recovery ....

Todays post is about recovery, both completed and expected. First up the Balletomane surgery was deemed ok by the the knitter whos work it was. K did admit in the comments to giggling hysterically, but reassured me that it was successful. Then the replacement blanket is back to where it was before I frogged it - and reworked the last two pattern repeats. Then there is an expected recovery on the horizon, I'll explain.


First up the recovered grafted Balletomane, there were two grafted seams, each with a face and reverse side. That meant four finished sides to look at.

The first three looked absolutly fine, the graft matched the garter stitch nicely.

See - even the neck edge which is i-cord blended in invisibly.

But the fourth side, well .... I grafted it three times, and each time there was a section that just refused to blend in smoothly. It was because of the short rows .. and while I attempted to work the rows so they were as they should be .. this one just wasn't as nice to look at as the others. But the good news is that because of the way Balletomane is constructed .. well there is no inside or outside until the sleeves are picked up and knit, so this can just become the inside.

I have been knitting on the last of the continuous round of lace on the blanket, in preparation for the last colour change and working lace sideways to form the last band. Every time I dumped my lace on the chest which serves as a table in the family room .. . the detritus of my knitting struck me as a kind of knitters still life. Here is a sample, there is an 'advanced spinning group' newsletter, the knitting in progress, a tape measure and chart on a chart keeper, cup mats to protect the wood and a game. Shaun the Sheep ... Bear bought for the cubs because it has his current favorite cartoon character in it, the Sheep - Shaun. This sheep comes from one of the early Wallace and Gromit moves - A close shave, which was based around knitting wool shortages and has a still motion dog slightly smarter than his owner - whats not to like.


So with that done and returned, I was able to turn to the Shetland yarn blanket, and I finally am back to where I was when I decided the colour bands were in the wrong order and frogged it. That time Yo-yo seemed to confirm my thoughts, she did not look impressed. This time as I laid out the blanket for a photo .. Yo-yo was there again. She wouldn't budge, so ended up in the corner of the photo. That would be the black fuzzy bit on the lower right.



Truly that cat would not budge, just sat and looked on as I arranged the blanket so the white center and grey bands could be clearly seen. I trust the lace points will block out and open up more when this is done. My plan is to work an extra repeat of the lace around each corner, or two if needed to gain the length needed to fit around the corner. And the odd red 'thing' dangling from her neck? Well it is her collar which has come slightly undone, I do apologize for not tidying up my cat before her photo was captured.

And I really don't know if Yo-yo approves of the change or not ... what do you think?
Take care
na Stella

Knit surgery - or Do not try this without

confidence,
There are some things that sound like a good idea, and they are a good idea, but undertaking them requires a leap of faith. Even more so when the work belongs to another knitter.
This week there has been more knitting on the grey band around the blanket .. those seemingly never ending rounds ... so progress is slow and honestly the blanket looks much like the last post. But the end is in sight ... I'm now working the points at the top of the lace ... so counting down to a colour change and direction change.

Alongside that project .. I have spend some time with another knitters project, K's Balletomane. K was lovely enough to want to knit Balletomane before the pattern was ready .. and so didn't have the advantages of the photos and finished pattern and diagram. As soon as I shipped her the finished pattern .. she mentioned that the shape she had knit was not the shape in the photos. Opps - totally something I had missed, a sentence to the effect that when working the shoulder ... one needed to make sure one was at a particular side of the work .. before separating the two sections to work the yoke. If one was not .. then the shoulder would be constructed 'upside-down' or 'backwards'.

Opps.
But I'm not one to walk away from a knit problem, well I am sometimes but this seemed so fixable. In simple terms, there were two possible fixes, the shoulder section needed to be removed and swivelled 180 degrees, and then grafted back into place .. or the entire side of the ballet-wrap needed frogging and reknitting. Reknitting is kind of boring .. so I offered to perform the surgery. K was incredibly trusting, either that or she didn't fully realize what I was proposing to do to her beaded shaped knitting ....

Which was this. Here is her knitting once I had removed the shoulder but before I had rotated the shoulder piece. One I turned the shoulder section 180 degrees I grafted it into place the right way around.
So far so good, grafting garter stitch takes a wee bit of planning, making sure that one side is a purl row and the other is a knit row .. and then keeping attention as to where to thread the yarn to make the new stitches.

Tricky and fiddly but it is possible.

I'll show you the finished section once K has given her seal of approval.



Oh - and this is the first K has seen of it .. so K - remember to breathe :D

Na Stella