Invested

I have been slowly laboring on this vest for Boy 1. It is not a portable project because of the stitch pattern, which features cables and twisted stitches. When I work on it, I have to have two pieces of paper out (with charts marked with highlighter tape) and a good place to keep my cable needle close at hand. Oh, and I have to have my wits about me. These are impediments to rapid progress!

In fact, I’ve made a couple of mistakes on the cables. Can you see the mis-crossed cable in this photo? It’s about 8 rows down from the top:

I decided that I was going to fix that cable – and without ripping back. So I got out a blocking mat (to pin into), a bunch of dpns, some locking stitch markers, and a good light, and set myself up at the table to perform surgery.

I dropped the four stitches in the cable and carefully pinned out each strand that was released when I dropped the stitch. Then I used my trusty crochet hook to pick everything up again and cross the cable the correct way. Success!

It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. This yarn is really “sticky” so I wasn’t worried about it running away from me. And having the mat and the pins and all my surgical tools at the ready made the process go smoothly. When the same mistake happened again, it didn’t raise my blood pressure at all. I just stopped knitting (this time only about 6 rows up) and fixed it before moving on.

The “real” color of this is the brighter blue in the photos taken outdoors:

I am now 9 or so inches into the front of the vest. It will require a bit more attention because I have to work the neck opening and the armhole at the same time. I’m not there yet. I would love to have this done before Christmas so the boy can wear it, but I don’t know if that will happen.

Also, he does not have a shirt that would go well with this. That means shopping - which we all loathe. Hrmmm….