So I was zipping along on my fabulous Sublime scarf when it finally came time to start a new ball of yarn. Simple, yes? NO! I’m new to this, you see…and suddenly I found I didn’t have any coordination in my hands. Is there a trick to starting a new ball of the same color in Seed stitch? I knitted about three rows and found I could tell where the new yarn had been added so I tried to unstitch the way Megan at Stitch Cafe had shown me…”…hold the yarn tight in the back and put the right needle tip through the square window just beneath the stitch you want to take out…” (that’s not a direct quote, of course, but I think quoting a knitting expert adds a certain something special). I tried doing as she had instructed but sometimes the little window below the offending stitch wasn’t always so obvious so I (you did not!) took the scarf off the needles and (gasp) ripped out the three rows myself. Great idea, I thought.
Until I realized my stitches were disappearing each time I put the previous stitch back on the needle. So I’m not kidding: I’m not knitting. What good is it to have a new addiction if you can’t even practice it? Sniff sniff.
Welcome to the knitting Dark Side…mwahaha. In all seriousness, I find threading your knitting onto a smaller needle while ‘tinking” (AKA knitting backwards) helps eliminate the lost stitch syndrome. For instance if you are knitting on a #8 needle, I would use a 4 or 5 needle to hold the stitches you are undoing. It is easier to put knitted stitches on a smaller needle than trying to thread them back on a needle of the same size. When you are done fixing your error, it’s a piece of cake to knit the stitches back onto your regular work needle. See if that helps!
And yay! you for taking up knitting! We’re a fun bunch!
[...] 1st, 2007 by knittyme OK I got the Sublime scarf back on the needles, [...]