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Friday, September 17, 2010

Repairs, Quick Fixes & Letting it Be



Mistakes can be hard to admit.  Not just in knitting, but everywhere.  I'm finding that readily admitting a mistake tends to soften the outcome.  So, why is it sometimes so hard to look at a mistake in our handwork & just deal with it?
Why is my sweater still lurking in the bottom of my knitting bag?  
One of our Knit Night regulars, Beth, is a very, very good knitter .  She regularly tackles projects that make me gawk.    One of Beth's strengths as a knitter is her willingness to ask for help.  If she is stuck, she asks for help.  If she wants to modify a pattern or use a different yarn, she asks for help.  When she makes a mistake, she asks for help--or, sometimes, she just RIPS.  And I do mean RIPS.  Just this week, Beth ripped out nearly the whole back of a vest because her yarn had a less than subtle dye change from skein to skein.  

I asked Beth, about her strategies for mistakes.  Here are her guidelines for knitting mistakes:

1.   If it is painfully obvious or will bug you every time you see the piece/project…then ya gotta fix it.

2.   If only you know it is there and it will not affect the pattern sequence in the next row or the overall outcome…keep going.

3.    Migrate toward patterns that have charts. That way you can see what should be happening in the row where the mistake is and maybe fix it on the next round by tinking back on only the stitches that are in error and fixing them from above.

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