Apparently I Just Can’t Knit
Published On: January 9, 2011

Yesterday saw the (slightly more vicious than was perhaps strictly necessary) ripping of the two-headed hat.  This morning I cast on for the second version.  Yesterday’s hat used 8 repeats of the stitch pattern.  A bit of measuring and swatching and needle swapping had led me to firmly believe I should remove 2 of those repeats.  Now just to review, 8-2=6.  Do keep that in the back of your mind as we go forward.

This morning bright and early I sat down to cast on the the second version of the hat (the ‘bright and early’ bit may have been part of the problem).  I got some stitches on the needle, joined up, and started knitting.  Now by my count, I’ve cast on and joined for working in the round several hundred times.  It’s second nature.  I just sort of do it on autopilot.  I have never in the last three plus years of knitting had a problem with my stitches being twisted.  I actually always found that ‘join, being careful not to twist’ instruction rather gratuitous.  Really, who has a problem with that?  Ah, hubris.

After about three or four rounds, I realized something odd was going on.  It was twisted.  Great.  Nifty.  Now I know what twisted knitting looks like.  No amount of fiddling seemed able to bring things back to good.  Fine.  Thanks for the learning experience.  Rip number two.

I cast on again, managed not to twist it this time, and got another inch knocked out.  Then I noticed that it looked kinda…small.  I told myself quite firmly that it was supposed to be smaller — that this all started because the first iteration was way too big.  I had checked, I had decided I needed to remove 2 repeats, 6-2 is absolutely and totally 4, so I was going to make this hat over 4 repeats and that was the end of it.

Did you catch that?  Are you smarter than me (admittedly not a very high bar today)?  Now while it’s true that I did want to remove 2 repeats, I somehow seemed to have taken yesterday’s answer (8-2=6) and yesterday’s shrinking plan (remove 2) and combined them into this hat’s third failure.  I have ripped.  Again.  The yarn has been set aside for the moment in the interest of preserving the safety and sanity of all those involved.

I am going to find a cup of tea and cast on a sock.  At least if that’s two times too big, I can pretend it was meant to be a hat.

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