Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Be Gentle, It's my first time



Hey everybody! Allow me to introduce to you my very first "serious" cable knitting project. I say "serious" because I've knit a hat with cabled ribs, but as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't really count!


I've had a rough start. After the first chart repeat the cable pattern looked like this;



Wha? Something was definitely amiss. I put it aside for a while and knit a swatch from the chart. Still wonky. I knit more swatches with different interpretations of the chart. I compared the chart to other charts. Having never knit cables before, the chart was not exactly second nature to me. I did however decide I was at least a good enough knitter to recognize that there was something wrong with the pattern.

The 2007/2008 collection of patterns on the Drops sight are first editions and they do warn against errors. The site had a contact to report errors so report I did. Naturally, I figured out the mistake 5 minutes before they got back to me! (It was a cross in front/cross in back mix-up if you're curious). I will say, the Drops people were very quick to get back to me and corrected the pattern on their website right away. I'm a freakin' hero!

If anything good came of the rigmarole, it was all that swatching (I had knit a gauge swatch with the yarn, but that was just in plain stockinette). It forced me to "understand" the cable, rather that just blindly following the chart. Plus, I got frustrated with the cable needle and looked up how to cable without one. I'll be a cable master in no time!

1 comment:

Christie said...

Yeah! Glad to see you back at it! And it's good to know the Drops folks are very good about getting back to inquires about the patterns.

Yeah, it is much easier to cable without the needle...I'm positive you'll be a cable master!