[Nfb-krafters-korner] Christmas Crafting Miracle!

[Powers, Terry (NIH/OD/DEAS) [E]]

Congratulations on a job well done!  I sure know I could not have done it, maybe one or two stitches, but surely not that many!  Just what happened to you is one of my reasons for not buying interchangable needles.  Does this happen often?

Terry P.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Eileen Scrivani [mailto:etscrivani at verizon.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2010 11:33 PM
To: Nfb-krafters-korner at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Nfb-krafters-korner] Christmas Crafting Miracle!

Okay, this is my own short story of a Christmas miracle...

Since last week, I've been working on a military hat/face warmer for my brother-in-law as a Christmas present. I wanted to finish it by tonight, wash it and lay it out for blocking tomorrow and then if it stretched I could re-wet and put in the drier to try and shrink it minimally.

I finished the main hat portion last night without any problems, even was smart enough to weave in my ends at that point so I would not have minor finishing to deal  with at the end.  Then started on the face ribbing.  All was going well, except as I was sitting and working on it this afternoon while readjusting my stitch markers I thought I felt something weird!

Panic!  The cable on my adjustable needle broke and about 30 or 40 stitches were just hanging there.  I felt heart sick and instantly started thinking "Oh, s - - t" I'm going to have to rip the entire thing out and it would never get done for Christmas.  Picking up stitches has remained one of my short comings where my knitting is concerned. I tried my best to stay cool as best I could without letting it get the best of me. I started to think about what would be the best way to even try to attempt getting all those dropped stitches back on the needles with the least frustration.

Instantly, I went and got 2 size 0 needles, one that I use as a life line and one that I have just as a skinny needle tool for other tricky knots and dropped stitches which is a straight 0 needle, the smallest crochet hook from my set. And of course a packet of the ever loved Clover locking stitch markers.

First those stitches that actually remained on the needle point I slipped onto the size 0 circular needle, pushed them onto the cable portion and just let it hang there while I worked on those that were in limbo.  I took up the size 0 straight needle and no matter if I was able to grab up a single nice loop or loops that felt doubled or triple thickness scooped them onto the straight needle and used the clover locking markers to catch the remaining stitches that already started running down the ribbing.

Next I started to tink (knit backwards/unknit) stitch by stitch to make them all behave and line up.  I was even able to use the crochet hook to re hook up those stitches that were held by the locking markers.  Amazingly I finally figured out how to hook them up on both the stockinette side and the rev st st sides. Whew!  After about 2 hours of carefully working through this I got them all back; stitch count correct and pattern in tact.  I know 2 hours of time sounds like a lot, but keep in mind I've been working on this hat since about last Thursday.  Two hours as compared to an entire weeks work is nothing.  

So tonight I've been happily working on my ribbing, have bound off and will be able to launder it tomorrow and see what the fit is like.  I'm so happy that I could actually get them all straightened out on my own and was able to properly use the crochet hook on both the knit & purl sides of the fabric to keep the ribbing pattern correct!

Merry Christmas to all!

Eileen
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