Heptagon turning point

Fellow guild member Eileen inspired 07-07-07 heptagon project reached a jump needle and time to think level sometime back. I opted to go for a third tier of bumps and then I knit flat for about an inch before log rowing the bumps/petals back out. Once I'd reached the time to decrease this heptagon mode the next decision tree arose.

I didn't wrap any of my short rows and I increased with yarn overs so a successful pillow was going to need a liner. Initially I thought of shifting into sewing mode and whipping up a sage green satin pillow insert.

Couple of problems with that plan -- finding the satin, creating the template and that whole semi-precise sewing thing. When I first got serious about knitting much of my efforts were about trying to do with knitting what I was already doing with sewing. Fast forward and I'm still playing with knitting to mimic sewing but now my sewing skills totally suck.

So the seven side thing sits while sewing or other stuffing option work themselves out.

The first time this project appeared on the blog, I had the short row bump outs pinned back and constrained. That's one option for the final product. Today's photos are not as staged and give some idea of a second option.

That option allows some or all of the sculptural qualities of the technique to do what they do and provide a sort of nest for the rings the pillow is designed to bear. Today's second photo provides some idea of the three dimensional/sculptural quality of the piece.

2x twine into 5 a shopping bag in process

The last time this project appeared on the blog it was not a pretty picture because the yellow nylon twine's thicker weight and my death grip gauge did not yield the desired flat fabric.

I've moved on since.

I took all the yellow out of the bottom pentagon and came back in with a thinner green nylon twine. For no particular reason I opted to do a geometric perimeter in pentagon.

Because the original twine has arguably less strength than the nylon, I'll probably run a bead of a good glue around the inner and outer join of the bottom polygons for added security.

The orange points that were in process when the bag first appeared on the blog have been completed.

The lighter orange twine was used to long row the valleys created by the orange short rowed points. It makes for a very nice shape that is almost circular.

The yellow twine from the failed bottom pentagon has been recycled and used on the sides of the bag for a few rounds.

When I took these photos I had just begun to add another orange twine in a mesh stitch pattern that I found and fell in love with in my much loved Mary Thomas Knitting books.

Stars and square self-challenge update

For the Memorial day weekend what could be better than an update to the red white & blue knitted afghan square self challenge?

Blogger doesn't speak pdf so II can't readily share the drawings that I'm trying to reproduce in knitting but I'll get the images up to my web page at some point and provide links to the two most interesting plans.

The basic idea is to mix centre out polygons with perimeter in polygons or to mix centre outs with either grafting or three needle bind offs.

In the photo to the left there are five geometric pentagons with eight stitches on a side.

The pentagon sides were then extended with short rows. Unfortunately, at this size, the stars measured six inches at the widest point and that's too big for the particular constraints.

So I frogged each one back to six stitches on a side.

My first idea was to use Russian grafting to join a white star to a blue centre out pentagon. It worked but it wasn't pretty.

The second idea was the in and out mix and that's shown in the photo at right.

Each of the five blue pentagons have been knitted from the perimeter in starting with a mix of the live stitches from the adjoining white stars and stitches picked up from the selvedge stitches of the stars.

The whole ring now measures about 10 inches across which is perfect for the 12 inch square.

For the centre I'm trying to decide whether I want to do a red perimeter in pentagon (geometric or swirl) or a centre out.

The serious challenge will, of course, be taking the polygon formed by the merger of the stars and pentagons into a square.

For the moment, all the live stitches are sitting on waste yarn while I consider the options.

Bags, Bend, Whistles and okay so maybe gauge matters

With all the swirling star projects on and off various needles, I decided that it might be time to do a geometric or two. This particular beauty is still part of that knitted square self challenge.

It isn't a hugely successful part of that challenge and there are more geometric pentagon come-stars not currently in evidence and on needles but there will more on all of that in another post.

In a photo you're not seeing, I came back in with navy yarn and "long rowed" between the white points. That constrained the fabric up which wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Yes, even I, queen of short rows, don't always know what's going to happen when I play with short rows.

This gave me an interesting idea for yet another project to pursue. I know I don't need another project but the whole Trader Joe's thing, the breaking glass thumb story and some long languishing rather ugly hemp got me thinking about some sort of knitted shopping bag with a little extra pizazz.

All of this is how, on the Saturday, I came to be walking down the street knitting on a prototype pentagon shopping bag composed of hemp twine and the near day-glo nylon twine that created Senor Frog , the positively painful pink pig purse, mitred garter stitch luggage tags and other long ago and far away projects.

If I was a smarter knitter I would have done the original centre out geometric pentagon as a double knit project. I am not that smart so I ended up doing a rather involved knit/increase with two different yarns and then placing stitches on holders while working the perimeter in pentagon.

I believe that's what I was up to when I met the lads visiting from Bend. Bend Oregon that is. One of them, Grant, is a knitter and the other just a very supportive sort (we knitters like our supportive sorts). So we chatted, I directed them to Trader Joe's, handed off a card and info about Whistlestop knitting on the next day.

Grant ended up coming to Whistlestop knitting, grazing at The Grove (can you say Jitterbug?) and I hope having a very good knitterly memory of San Diego to recall, report, recount. I certainly enjoyed the time spent chattering and knitting -- sorry that all the chatter made the turning of the heel harder than it needed to be.

Onto the so maybe gauge bit. One of the things I like about this whole centre out polygon knitting thing is that for the most part since the direction of the knitting constrains the created fabric in all direction gauge (row & stitch) seem to be equalised and less of a factor. Five years later and I finally got a so maybe gauge does matter story. So Nancie, maybe you had a point, but I just hadn't seen it yet.

The salmon swirl pentagon may have been a precursor to the problem but the yellow day-glo nylon twine was the icing on the if the stitches can't spread out (read death grip choked to death tight knitting) cake.

By all rights this perimeter in swirl pentagon with a single decrease at the start of each side every round should have produced flat fabric but it didn't. You can see the spiral onto itself unwelcome result.

I've moved on to the long row bit with other nylon twine that has a similar gauge to the orange nylon twine (the yellow is slightly thicker) but not yet decided what/how to deal with the bottom of the bag.

Bagging it

I'm a bit of a bag lady. Not only do I schlep around knitting projects in various and sundry canvas bags, I'm usually packing a bag or two for purchases, library books etc.

I'd love to be able to claim that it is all about my environmental awareness but the fact of the matter is that I can't really resist a cute or even not so cute bag and that makes me a bit of a bag hag.

Based on my adventures in mucking out after my mum, this whole bag hag thing would appear to have a hereditary component. Not only do I not mind but I also have a certain amount of sadness about some of mum's bags that didn't come home with me. The Ohio story telling bag with the "oops that's another story" caption and the upside down state is one I'd love to have but that too is another story.

Being a bag hag has its rewards. For some time now the Ralph's grocery chain has given shoppers a 5 cent credit for each shopper supplied bag. More recently, Trader Joe's has been doing a raffle for people who supply their own bags.

I don't always fill out a raffle ticket even when asked and when I do fill one out (usually at either Hillcrest or Carmel Mountain locations) I do not expect to win. I've probably filled out more slips at the latter than the former and would have, in the unlikely event of a win, have expected it to come from entries there.

So imagine my surprise to answer the phone on work at home day to discover that I was a bi-monthly raffle ticket winner at my local Hillcrest homo-hood Trader Joe's..

Naturally, I had a pimple that ate Pittsburgh just under my eyebrow when I got the news. Since I knew that a photo was part of the price of winning, suffice to say that prize pick up took a back seat to pimple disappearance.

Casual thoughts, thumbs up and a heptagon in progress

The bulk of Casual cables' stitches are now on a holding needle. The pattern has been found. Based on the number of stitches on the needle I can see that I was making the size small with a finished chest size of 40.5 inches.

My gauge was not dead on and would have given me a nice middle ground between the size small and the far too big for comfort 44.5 inches chest measurement of the next size up. Had I been dead on gauge, the body of the sweater at the shoulder would have measured about 17 inches. The gauge to schematic numbers don't quite align and with only the neck width given in the schematic the best I can do here is a guess.

I still don't know what needle size I was working with so once wind a couple hanks of Berber cotton I think I'll be swatching. The Berber cotton has a ton of yardage and I worked it doubled. The ability to wind two hanks at once is one the things that I love most about my Goko swift. Look for a posting on that and be warned that you might want to race out and buy a Goko for yourself.

The thumb's healing nicely and it is going to leave a rather impressive scar that will look like a Nike logo. When I finally cleaned all the dried blood up, I was shocked to discover just how large a cut I was dealing with. My thumb is roughly 6cm around. The cut is just over 2cm which is about half the flesh potion of the thumb.

I was brave enough to start knitting something other than class sample swatches with blunt needles the other day and the in progress is shown to the right. It was inspired by fellow knitter Eileen and the hoopla surrounding the 07-07-07 wedding date.

The stitches have a nasty habit of jumping the needles and the ecru thread (mystery yarn) tends to split. It is about the weight of size 10 perle cotton and the needles it likes to slip are 2.25mm.

Despite the escaping and splitting tendencies it is moving right along and reaching a decision point. Choice one is to do another tier of the blossom/peak bump outs. Choice two is to try to morph it from heptagon to more of a circle (tetradecagon being the goal). Choice three is to just continue on with the heptagon. Finally, choice four is to decrease back down to a number that would readily create a centre out square and make this a sculptural piece on top of a square.

Bloody 'ell or not a good week for fingers

Lots of people think that walkabout knitting is dangerous. Some say that they couldn't possibly do both things (knitting and walking) at the same time. Some feel that while others might have the ability they are too unco-ordinated to combine walking and knitting.

I've pooh-poohed this notion many a time because, while I am capable of great grace, I'm also a total klutz who can stumble over air. I'm a big believer in muscle memory and listening to the wisdom of your body but that doesn't mean anyone's immune from bone stupid brain dead moments.

Sunday night, post Whistlestop knitting, was a perfect duh dumb such example. Sometime after arriving home, I realised that the cupboard, while not wholly bare, needed a bit of bolstering and a walk up to the shops was in order.

Quick walk up to the store for dinner supplies. Just outside my apartment, while chattering with a friend on the cell phone, I juggled the bags to find my keys. I juggled very badly because while I found the keys, in the process I dropped the canvas bag containing the groceries.

The bag hits pavement. I hear the sound of breaking glass and like a total idiot, I put my hand into the bag. I feel something sort of sharp and I pull my hand back quickly but not quickly enough. Suddenly I have two gushers -- the contents of bottle of wine that broke and my thumb.

Lots o lots o blood. Big drops, not showing signs of stopping. Still on the phone, I tell my pal that I need to hang up because I've just cut myself and need to deal with it.

So I take the unbroken and salvageable groceries out of the canvas bag, line them up on the wall and, bleeding all the way make the complex and my apartment. I grab a trash bag, go back outside and put canvas bag with broken stuff and the other groceries into the trash bag and take the lot back into my apartment.

I rinse my thumb, I start rummaging through the first aid kits, I'm still bleeding. I'm applying pressure. I've got gauze involved. I'm still bleeding. I'm starting to seriously wonder about when exactly my good coagulating genes are going to kick in and stop with the bleeding.

I find the butterfly bandages and try to apply one. It's my right thumb, of course and I'm right handed . This is not working well. So not working that the blood gushes out and renders the adhesive of the butterfly useless. I'm still bleeding. I've gone through multiple paper towels, pieces of gauze and I'm now down to wrap it in a mini pad and I'm still bleeding. I've tried salt water and it's not working.

Finally I've got a bit of gauze, some downward pressure on the wound and some superglue. Bit by bit I apply the superglue long enough to get something that starts to look like it might hold.

I do finally end up with a butterfly and another bandage on it courtesy of the clerk at a local convenience store but the hold was fragile and suddenly I'm playing a game of keep away with my dominant hand thumb.

Next day I mange to even the damage out a bit by giving myself a paper cut on the index finger of my left hand -- not so bloody an episode but equally knit not friendly.

Bloody bother not a lot of knitting on the week.

Escaping cones, VWs and other hazards of walkabout knitting

As reported here, I had my swirling to square pentagon with me as walkabout knitting on Whistlestop Sunday. I wasn't very far along the way when the cone of salmon cotton jumped bag.

After jumping bag, it dropped to the sidewalk, rolled off the curb, onto the street and under the embellished VW parked at the corner. I dropped the knitting and walked into the street to see just how far the cone had gone.

In a good news, bad news, moment, the cone had come to rest not under the VW but in the street on the other side of the car. While I've no fishing under the vehicle games to play, the street slopes down fairly sharply which leaves me and the cone in the street and the pentagon on the sidewalk with a car in between them.

I pick up the cone and give it a tug and meet resistance. It seems that my plan to drag the pentagon under the car and out the other side to reconnect with the cone has hit a snag as the cone's diagonal path under the car resulted in the cotton getting wedged under the rear tire. I give a sharp tug to the left in the vain hope that that will be enough to dislodge the delinquent cotton. This gives no joy so, rather than dig for the scissors, I just went with the pull until it breaks and get the hell out of the street strategy.

Walkabout knitting can have its dangers. This is just one of them. Continuing on, now working with rather disgusting salmon coloured cotton, the square it out efforts hit a not what I expected phase so I reverted to another quick on the needles experiment when I was about half way along the walk.

In a serious delight to me, Julie and Eileen (published author and really neat knitter) both managed to find their way to theWhistlestop on Sunday.

In a kick myself mode, I once again failed to pack the fine gauge bamboo yarn that I've been meaning to bring along for the last few times so, of course, the knitter most likely to knit with it and who I've been promising to bring it for was there working diligently on the last bit of the fine gauge baby set she'd been working for several Whistlestop Sundays.

Julie had a total hoot baby swimsuit onesie with strategic ribbing that made it look way more adult content. Eileen and I brain stormed a bit about promoting the local San Diego Stitch n Pitch game and then I gave her a her an mini Russian grafting lesson. Since I learned this technique I not only use it every chance I get but teach it to anyone who asks.

The not quite as I thought swirl to square got hauled out and off the needles for a consult. I had to agree that the fabric and needle combination was a bit tight and that my changing needle sizes from unknown to US 5 was probably a factor in the centre bump out. So it is still in progress with stitches off the needles and hanging in the studio while I consider what I can try next to coax it or its successor project with better behaved yarn into a square.

I also had the Casual Cables cardi with me and the general consensus was that it was worth trying to rehabilitate with various options bounced around.

Because I knew I was going to be seeing Eileen, I'd packed some of my polygon inspired projects including an assortment of flowers, the end to end cube, and the six point star pillow/pin cushion.

The cushion caught her attention as a possible project for an upcoming family event and also as a jumping off her usual knitting path. Julie, in a classic enabling moment mentioned having seen some highly suitable yarn over The Grove. With just that little bit of encouragement, Eileen and I set off to forage across the way.

We came away with not on sale Filatura di Crosa Brilla and some on sale Maggi Knit Ribbon -- both buying enough to complete the project as I suggested a possible knitalong where I could coach the effort.

The sale bin also held some K1C2 Fleece that and some nylon ribbon that demanded to come home with me.

I decided that since I cheated and walked up the Cypress Street steps on the way out that I would walk down and up the Upas Street hill on the way home. I described this from Florida to Park trek as an ambitious effort back in January 2007.

The photo to the right shows what that looks like looking down from near the crest of the hill by Park Boulevard.

The narrow strip to the far side of the middle of the photo is the top of the hill just below where Alabama, Upas & Morley Field Drive meet.

That's the trek up I made back in January and the downhill effort for today's adventures in walkabout knitting to the Whistlestop.

Seis what and Whistlestop

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. My only connections to the celebrations of the day involved eating pollo asada and knitting a five (cinco) sided swirling salmon polygon while on walkabout.

When the salmon coloured pentagon was last seen, it had 10 stitches on a side and I saw real possibilities for its future. Based on yesterday's knitting, I can honestly say that my not needing to move the increase points was somewhat misguided and misleading. The increases continue to be at the start (or if swirling the other way end) of each side of the pentagon but where the side starts shifts because of the short rows.

In the first photo, the red twist tie marks the original start of a round of knitting. Would that I had purled that first round to make it pop but I didn't and I was not about to frog an experiment. Instead the shifted polygon formed from the short rows is indicated by the yellow headed pins.

The yellow headed pin to the left of the twist tie, which is also the pin at the top of the photo, marks the new starting point of the round. With the increases now shifted to the new start of the round, I continued knitting until I had double the stitches on a side (20). This time, to mark the swirl point, I purled one round before beginning the short row points/segments.

I still have 20 stitches on a side but what constitutes a side has once again shifted as has the start of the round.

The first pentagon was 3 inches tall/wide. The second one (marked with the yellow pins) is 4 inches,

The third one (being the 20 stitches on a side before short rowing) is a hair under 7 inches and the after most recent short row treatment is a bit over 9 inches.

All of these measurement are without any coaxing/blocking. It wouldn't be terribly difficult to square this piece out at this point.

Whatever side I'd define as the base side would simply stay unworked or be bound off. The flanking sides of that base would get a bit of short rowing to create steep triangles. The top sides would get the same short row treatment as before and to finish off the square. No, no, really -- I promise it really will work although I can't promise that it will work the first time through.

I'll be putting it on a circular and walkabout knitting to the Whistlestop on glorious sunny Sunday.

Needle me this -- would notes help?

I frogged the body of the casual cables cardigan back to where I'd done the bind off for the sleeve under arms on the back and one front side. I figured that since the length was right I'd leave one side's knitting as is to help me gauge the progress of the redesign.

The stitches are all (and no I haven't counted them) just sitting there waiting to be scooped up onto a needle but it's been 5 years since I knit it and any notes I made on needle sized used are hiding and hiding well.

That scoop the stitches up thing is one of the few knitting magic tricks that used to boggle spouse's mind. Me knitting lace while walking was not worthy of comment, my design work no shock, my complaining about how fiddly the first few rounds when working in the round was inevitably met with a "you always complain and it always turns out perfectly" which was almost always true but when I would casually scoop stitches that had jumped off the needle, it was the stuff of wonder and always got a "how can you just do that???" Still makes me smile and feel a bit like a conjurer.

I think the photo shows a bit of how well the cables pop and why I'm loathe to just frog the whole thing. It's a nice bit of work and it would be nice to rehabilitate it and add it to the wardrobe and also to the live and learn file.

A piece of me isn't that upset that I don't know what size needles I used for this originally since I know that my knitting style has changed over time and I also know that this piece has been finished and machine washed and dried multiple times before being frogged back to this state.

I'm not in a huge hurry to get those stitches on a needle. They can sit and wait a bit while I decide what I want it to be in this incarnation and maybe even dig out the pattern for inspiration or just luck.

WWHD? and short rows starring stars

Fellow Knitnite attendee Julie, mentioned that now whenever she does short rows (and she does them a lot very well thank you) she thinks "what would heather do?" Which I've shortened to WWHD. I suggested that often the answer is frog, curse and have a tipple of a potent potable.

I did have some short row and polygon pieces in my bag as part of the rethink/fiddling about with the San Diego County fair yarn block project mentioned in my 22 April blog entry.

My first flawed theory to combine some pentagon modules into a square involved working short rows on a pentagon side as follows -- knit or purl one less stitch each time. Assuming a 10 stitch side that translates into knitter speak as: knit 10, turn, purl 9, knit 8, turn, purl 7 etc. working one less stitch each row until you've "orphaned" (heather speak) all of the stitches and have 5 on each side. Then I knit down the small hill of 5 stitches and repeat the process on the next segment.

So what's the problem? I have 5 stitches on a side and the goal was to graft these wedge pieces to another pentagon's side and, at least in my mind, that other pentagon had 10 stitches on each side.

At least that's what I had drawn and then set about the business of seeing how and if I could so just that with some combination of short rows. I played with doing some sort of m1 to double the number of stitches on each side and, while that gets ride of the short row gap quite nicely, it doesn't give me an any additional length to graft to a pentagon with 10 stitches on a side.

The star shape you get when you use this type of short rowing is a bit, frankly, squat. If you were trying to make a sculptural piece (reverse your short rowing back to the base on each segment) you would get a nice star but it wouldn't have strongly pronounced points. It wouldn't have any seams either but the trade off is a chunky star.

From the original modular perspective this is not a winner even though I have all the live stitches I envisioned. From another modular perspective and even from just a hmmm perspective it has promise in terms of rotating your polygon (or spiraling your shape) without having to change your increase positions.

Take a look at the salmon star swatch to the left and tell me that you don't see seriously fun possibilities for this construction method.

But it has some problems for me since of one the kicking design around ideas involved using the short rows to extend the shape and give me that extra width and this just isn't the technique to get me there.

My second flawed theory to combine some pentagon modules into a square involved working short rows on a pentagon side as follows -- continue knitting to the right side of and stop knitting on the left side. Assuming a 10 stitch side that translates into knitter speak as: knit 10, turn, purl 10, knit 9, turn, purl 9 etc. working one less stitch each set of rows until you've "orphaned" (heather speak) 9 of the 10 stitches. The photo at the top of this blog entry shows the two different methods worked on the same base pentagon to show the differences clearly.

If you knit back down your 10 stitch mini-mountain and repeat the process on each of your other four sides you will produce a five-pointed star that looks rather like the one to the left.
It is a nice look and if you bind off your "down the mountain" stitches you get a nice star that would make a great applique.

For strictly modular purposes there are some problems. Each segment has a mix of live and edge stitches. Unless you work the 1st knit or purl stitch as a selvedge stitch you don't have a good graft point for those stitches, The live stitches are separated by two rows leaving you with a noticeable gap if you attach yarn and begin knitting from them. And, then there's the can't get there from here part where you either have to attach new yarn to each segment with live stitches or do a pick up and knit on your non-live stitches to get to the next set of live stitches.
Third theory had me going back to a swatch I'd started as a possible way small gauge sports bra inspired thing. It was clear that I'd not used either of the two methods documented above to get the shape that make me go "ooooh, that;ll work" but I wasn't sure what I had done. I found it and this is round 3.

This is the classic long row method where you start by knitting one stitch and purling back one. Assuming a 10 stitch side that translates into knitter speak as: knit 1, turn, purl 1, knit 2, turn, purl 2 etc. working one more stitch each set of rows until you've worked all 10 stitches.

You knit back down your 10 stitch mini-mountain and repeat the process on each of your other four sides you will produce a five-pointed star that looks rather like the one to the left.

This star has some of the same problems as both of the other methods and here's just a quick couple of those points:

• Like the 2nd method it has a mix of live and dead stitches so you have the same can't get there from here issue.

• The points are not as squat as the 1st nor as long as the 2nd.

• The live stitches are on the same row level (unlike the 2nd method) so you have less of a gap.

For the fair square this shows promise and for the give me width to produce a garment both the 2nd and third method give me options and the photo below shows how that twice the number of rows in method 2 varies from method 3

Casual Cable update -- at Knitnite , I'd disconnected the Casual cables' sleeves and did pull it out to ask for group consult.

That's when I described the sleeves as "phreaking Juliet sleeves" and came to the current conclusion that sleeves and sweater body will probably be permanently separated into different projects after they have been frogged and reworked.

Casual cables conundrum

This month's "big" guild meeting included the annual stash sale and the programme was about San Diego style which is code lingo for working with fibres other than wool.

The newsletter suggested that members wear non-wool sweaters to show and share and that live and learn disasters would also be welcome to illustrate problems that come from working with the various fibres.

Well, I rarely work with wool and I don't have a lot of knitting disasters kicking around but there are a few notable ones. One of them has been coming out to mock me for nearly five years..

In 2002, I did the breast cancer 3 day walk. I knit while on the walk and the project was Casual Cables by Michele One-L Wyman who, at that time was still a breast cancer survivor. Sadly Michele died a few years back but her wonderful patterns are still available at LYS and also online at Effectiveness by Design. The sweater is a cardigan with a modified drop shoulder (aka the basic T) .

I used long discontinued Berber cotton doubled. I twisted my stitches intentionally while working the cables to make them pop. Other than a "gee that bit of pooling looks like a stain on the front" which had to be frogged back and corrected with the addition of another length of yarn, everything seemed to be going well until I got to the sleeves.

In the first go 'round it was immediately obvious that the sleeves were just way too big. So I recalculated and knit them again. Even though they fit into the armhole and are considerably smaller than the original, there's still way, way too much fabric happening in this sleeve.
My first shot at finishing the thing probably wasn't as good as it could have been but in hind sight it also probably wasn't the sole source of the troubles. My picked up and knit collar (just a bit of a roll) and my button bands were beautiful but sewing the sleeves to shoulder just looked wonky. Wonky being, of course, a very technical knitting term.

Tore them out, sewed them again and the wonk factor remained with way too much fabric at the under arm and in the sleeve. With the T shaping, yet another rework the sleeves wouldn't solve the problem. Steeking and seaming into an underarm cable would just be a bulky mess in the cotton. Tearing all the way back and completely reworking/redesigning the sweater loomed as the only real solution (other than, just giving it up for lost).

This is when the disgusted and easily distracted phase kicked in. The sweater went into the deal with it later bin and I moved on to other, more satisfying knitting.

The deal with it later bin, which could also be considered my personal Pandora's box of knitting problems, sometimes coughs up a project as if to say "can you fix me now?" Sometimes my answer is an aggressive no followed by frogging (a major reason why I don't have too many knit disasters kicking around) but other times it is woeful whimper and a reminder than sometimes the disaster wins.

This sweater has been one of the woeful whimper projects. It comes up to the surface and I take a look to see if I was too hard on myself (sometimes it happens) and the knitting or if I can fix it or some combo.

This year, perhaps inspired by the guild or maybe because I'm also tearing out another project where I didn't start my armhole shaping soon enough, I decided that a frog and rework was not only possible but probable.

Watch for occasional updates on how this will be transformed and why the basic T modified drop shoulder didn't work for me and what will.