Can't walk and chew gum
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This pattern is kicking my butt. I'm trying to knit this Patchwork Textured Vest for my Mom. It is my very first attempt at knitting a shaped garment and it is proving to be more of a challenge than I ever imagined it would be. I chose this vest for two reasons. The main reason is that it met all of Mom's criteria. The second reason is because it looked like a relatively easy pattern to follow. I must be extremely dense because I cannot even finish this simple pattern.
I had finished the Back and Left Front sections of the vest a little while back. I started the Right Front section and set it aside for a while, but managed to pick it up again during my trip to Monterey. I was moving right along and thought I was ready to bind off. Then I noticed the little note on the side where I wrote "22 sts". Ok, I clearly had more than that on my needles. I had 42 stitches! Ok, what happened here?!
The photo above shows the Right Front section where I was ready to bind off. I hadn't really looked at the piece last night, but after laying it out to take this photo I can clearly see that it lacks the shaping it should have. It is so obvious when you compare it to the photo of the Left Front section. This piece is too rectangular. What went wrong?
The photo above shows the last row before bind off. Yup, definitely more than 22 stitches.
I know I cast on 47 stitches when I started this Right Front section. I somehow only managed to decrease 5 stitches in the shaping section. I clearly could not follow instructions. I think I was too focused on following the 4-row repeat of the block patterns, and forgot I needed to do some sort of decrease every 2 or 4 rows. I also noticed that I didn't even do the "bind off 7" that begins the shaping section. Sigh...
If I had to guess, I'd say I just knit the first 24 rows of the shaping section without any decreases, and only applied the 5 decreases in the last 20 rows.
I took a slightly smaller 4.0 mm (US6) needle to work a lifeline through a row below where the shaping section begins. You can read about lifelines on Knitty. I will rip back to this point and start the shaping section again. Hopefully my forehead will have healed (from banging my head against the desk) by the time I hit my next snag...
Any bets on when I will actually finish this vest?
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8 stitch(es):
Don't feel bad Marie, I once made two right fronts. And I once reversed the sleeves I was sewing into a dress. Then wondered why it fit so weird :-)
You are not alone...I've messed up on a few patterns here and there. I find when your working on a project that is not mindless knitting it's best to keep working on it til it's finished. When I was working on my garterlac felted bag you would not believe how many times I had to rip that thing out before it was finished. I was pretty sick of it in the end and attribute it all to the fact that I was working on several things at the time and it was left in my bag too long between working on it.
Hope the rest goes smoothly for you :) Good luck :)
I can totally relate to having to rip back!! I have had to rip on just about every project I have ever made - talk about being dense when reading a pattern!!!
Good luck - the color is beautiful and the pattern is really interesting - your mom will really love this when you finish.
Yep, been there, did the pounding. DH's entrelac vest, which I started months ago with such excitement and faux sense of control, is still in time-out, when I realized that the nearly-done front looked very short. Can we say row-gauge issues? It was frogged back to the armscye and now waits for cooler weather to continue.
Hang in there!
Oh goodness, I'm feelin' ya, girl! I've done similar things MANY times. Don't worry, you'll get it all sorted out! You're an amazing knitter!
Stuff like that is why I now knit any items that need shaping - like fronts and sleeves - both at the same time.
I have to say it cheered me up immensely to find that I am not the only one who can knit on for inches and inches and not notice that something isn't quite right :)
I'm certain it will be beautiful once you get it done. I love the colour!
I love the texture to the pattern! Once you get the shaping right, and I know you will, it's going to be beautiful! :)
You should read my friend Abigail's blog. She knits a lot of sweaters and every time she is knitting one, she ends up ripping them out at one point or another at least 3 times. She's knitting the Central Park Hoodie right now and she held it up to her and we totally advised her it was way to short. So she, of course, ripped back (#3 on this sweater, forget the fact that the main part of her sweater is being knit out of yarn that she knit up into a failed sweater already...).
Good luck on successfully decreasing!
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