I’m knitting the Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style (9th row of the 3rd repeat). To my dismay, I just discovered that I have an extra stitch on each side (at least I was consistent). I don’t really want to rip it out, because I seem to get myself in trouble unknitting lace (yup, this is my first lace project).
Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best place to decrease on the next row, so that I will have the correct number of stitches (in the least obvious way so that it doesn’t affect the pattern)?
That really depends on where the increases occurred in the pattern. :think: You could just knit 2 together at the edges, but there’s no way without seeing the pattern and where you’re at to know if that will affect the way the lace lines up.
May I suggest a life line once you get yourself back on track? This way you have a place to rip back to that you know is right.
Just strand a piece of thin, slippery yarn (or even dental floss) through all the stitches while they’re on your needle at a row where you know you’re right. If you make a mistake, you can rip out to the life line. You periodically move it up as you go.
More on lifelines:
I usually leave my lifelines in, just in case I find my self needing to rip back behind my most recent lifeline. Maybe I’m paranoid? But then again, with that many stiches, who wants to take a chance?
I totally agree with Ingrid. Having just finished my first lace project, I can’t tell you how many mistakes and frogs there were until I started using a lifeline. It’s one of those things that’s easy, but oh so useful!
Regarding how to correct it, listen to Ingrid and those who know what they’re doing. ( I still can’t figure out how to fix lace!)
I didn’t really know how to do a lifeline, but it seems pretty easy…and I’m definitely going to give it a try at the end of this repeat!! I really wish I’d done it before, because I’m not exactly sure where I made the mistake. Since the edges have y/os, I’m wondering if I should just do a couple of k2togs above a bunch of knit stitches. How does that sound?
You could insert a lifeline now, try it, and then see how it looks after a few rows?
I’m in the paranoid crowd too. Usually I have 5 lifelines going if it’s really complicated. I’ve actually had it happen where I ripped and my lifeline was wrong! So now I keep at least 2 or 3 going.
I’m slowly starting to learn how to read, rip, and fix mistakes where you don’t need the lifeline but it’s hard. It is coming with time though.
I’ve been knitting lace for about 10 years and I can tell you that usually randomly decreasing in a pattern to get rid of excess stitches will often get you into more trouble later on. If you are sure that the main part of the pattern is lined up correctly and the extra stitches are truly at the edge then you could go ahead and decrease.
However, if the extra stitches are a result of putting in YOs in the patten where they don’t belong and you decrease at the edges you will be throwing the whole pattern off kilter.
With lace knitting it’s a good idea to get in the habit of counting stitches after each and every pattern row before going on to the next row. If your count is off, go back and find the mistake. You don’t necessarily have to tink back. If it is a YO where it shouldn’t be, put a marker on it and just drop it off the needle on the next row. If you missed a YO put a marker where it should have gone and lift the bar between the stitches on the next row to make an instant YO.
Some people like to put stitch markers between patten repeats across the row to help with the counting.
I think I probably messed up something when I ‘unknitted’ a couple of rows ago. I’m not so great at reading my knitting yet, but I will try to figure out what I did. I was just hoping not to have to rip out anything again (until I can get a lifeline in there, that is) because I seem to get into trouble when I unknit lace.