After knitting during the multitude of trips I’ve been on in the past weeks, I never seem to be without a knitting project in hand for my daily commute. It feels nice to get back to my old habit, even though it means I’m the crazy lady knitting in 90-degree weather. heh
While I’ve had to postpone work on my Aqua Waves Jumper (I need another size 2 needle and haven’t gotten around to buying one yet), I decided to pick up an old, hibernating project: The Greta Turban/Snood by Susan Crawford.
I bought the Greta Turban kit last October at the same time that I bought Vol. 2 of A Stitch in Time. I cast on for it and got 6 rows in when I put it away for some unknown reason.
Picking it up again quickly reminded me! I had no idea how to do the stitch pattern of (K1,M1,K1) in 1 stitch. This to me makes no sense what so ever! You knitting guys know that to do a M1 stitch, you pick up the bar in between the current and the next stitch. So doing this all in 1 stitch just didn’t make sense.
I put a question in a Ravelry forum but didn’t hear back quickly enough (I ran out of patience) and just did K1F, K1B, and K1F in the same stitch.
But I kept plugging away for a while, and got to thinking… this looks a bit too wide for a turban. I then did a bunch of decrease stitches, and this was the result:
Yeah…. it’s as wide as my keyboard even after I did the decrease stitches! Craziness!
I referenced the Ravelry forums once again and found that 2 other people had a width of 34 and 36 cm, respectively. Mine was around 45cm’s after the decreases and well over 50 cm’s at the lower cast on edge.
It’s soo huge!!! I remember thinking that at the outset, but I just kept knitting, rationalizing the size issue away. heh It honestly didn’t sink in how wide it was until I saw it next to my keyboard.
It was painful, but I frogged it and started over like a good knitter.
What’s actually pretty great is that I heard back from Susan in the Ravelry forum and she described how to do the crazy *(K1, M1, K1) in 1 stitch* portion of the directions. Instead of picking up the bar in the next stitch, you simply pick it up knit wise, just below the current stitch you’re in.
Here’s the new detail shot of the stitch pattern:
It’s pretty similar to the (Knit Front, back and front), but this correct version has more holes, similar to an eyelet which I like better than what I did the first time around.
Sucky as it was to frog (ie rip out) all of my work from the past week, the *new* turban/snood will actually be wearable (which is always a good thing) and it’s now in the correct stitch pattern. :) Yay!
In: Knitting
Sounds very confusing. Glad to hear you have sorted it out now, nothing worse than having to rip out hours of work
It was difficult, but needed to be done. Hopefully with having a smaller width this time around it may even work up faster than my first go-around. :)
It’s looking good!
Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you – I’m hardly ever on Ravelry so I didn’t see your message for several days when I just happened to follow a Ravelry link from Facebook. :/
I had to frog it once myself. I’d somehow added two stitches by accident in the middle somewhere and it just would not come together nicely. I didn’t notice until I’d made one tie. Lots of evenings spent trying to make it work anyway, but it just looked off so I started over. It looks a lot nicer for it, though, since the first time around was my first ever knitting project and my tension went a bit back and forth.
It’s all good! I love that your ravatar image is the Greta Turban! Can’t believe this was your first every knitting project! It looks great! :)
It does pain me to rip out all that work, but I’m just like you. I’d rather have it perfect after putting some much time into it. Would be a waste of the time/effort to have it only be so-so in the end.
If it’s any consolation, I rarely knit an item without frogging it at some point. Inevitably there will be something I don’t like or think I can improve on. Other knitters I know think I’m nuts, but that’s because they’re product knitters, not *process* knitters. And I never regret starting over!
Once you accept that it’s about the process, not the product, frogging becomes easy. :)
Okay, okay…they probably are a bit more sane than I am….and you probably are too!
I rarely knit an item without frogging it at some point. Inevitably there will be something I don’t like or think I can improve on. Other knitters I know think I’m nuts, but that’s because they’re product knitters, not *process* knitters.
That’s interesting. I look at it completely the other way around, yet the end result is the same:
I don’t think knitting is a great journey and I don’t feel like I am in it for the process at all. I’m very much in it for the product. I prefer having knitted to knitting, in other words. But I’ll still start over from scratch to get a better product. Because I really care about the final product. I remember, when I was 12, I made a sweater once on my mother’s knitting machine (with her help). It had a panther in profile and I messed up a little on the tail right before getting to the neckline. My mother did not want me to frog it all, so she convinced me she could fix it. She sewed over the two incorrect stitches and that was that. For her. Me, I couldn’t wear the sweater without seeing a “huge” bulge where the yarn was double, so I avoided wearing it at all costs.
I hate “wasting” my energy like that, so I’d rather do it twice. :)
I think when I start a new technique I’m all about the process too. But I love having that end product so much! :)
I meant to knit this turban as a fun, mindless project until I get another set of needles to finish my Aqua waves jumper. But it always bites me… since I’ve had to frog and restart my project. heh No such thing as a mindless knitting or sewing project it seems. :)
I hope this one turns out. I’ve been eying this pattern on ravelry too. Maybe if I ever get around to finishing my sweater….
It’s a great pattern! I’ll be sure to actually update my Ravelry Projects page with the low-down on how to do the stitch and finished measurements in case end up making it yourself. :)
Oooo… I really love this. I’m sorry that you’ve had to frog it, but now you know it will turn out the way you want and you’ll actually wear it. I am crazy excited to see how you create an ensemble around this piece – I know it’s going to be fantastic!
Oh dear! I’ve been so focused on knitting this I hadn’t even thought about what to wear it with. :) I’m sure I’ll find or make something…