On second thoughts

Being a Libra by (astrological) nature, I rarely come to a straightforward decision right away. More often, I waver between options all the way through a process, never sure if the choice (for one has always to make a choice at some point) has been right and having second thoughts ... Which in terms of knitting equals lots of unraveling :)
When I started my husband's sweater, I reduced my pattern choices to these three: this German pattern, this Japanese pattern and this simple ribbed sweater. And the compromiser that I am, I decided to try a mixture of the last two - a rib formed of 4 knit st, 2 moss st. 10 cm into the sweater in the round I found that I disliked the graphics of the sweater as it was, so I unraveled it and started again a simpler ribbed design - 5 knit st, 1 purl st. So far so not so good. There seems to be a certain ratio between purl and knit stitches in a rib, beyond which a rib stops being a rib and starts to behave like stockinette and I suppose I crossed that line, because the end of the sweater curled unpleasantly. Ergo, I had another second thought and (being too far into knitting this time and not wishing to unravel again), I decided to add a rib to the rib by grafting. Now, grafting all purls or all knits is easy, but a rib ? I tried following a colored thread, but that's not for me. So, after many tries and fails, I just found how to imitate the path of the thread on knits and purls and after a while I got the knack of it and grafting became easy (and the grafting thread shorter, which makes all the difference, I can tell you :).

And for the tubular (machine) cast on of the rib I found this DROPS tutorial, which is ingenious, only I adapted it for my needs - only two knit rows of the rib color before starting the ribbing and alternating two purl stitches from the left needle with two knit picks from the bumps of first row of the rib color.



Linked to Tami's Amis WIP Wednesday. Check out this place!