Doing a pattern backwards (_Warm Weather Knits_ pattern)

How-to Questions
1

Hello everyone! I’m somewhat new to knitting and I’ve been working on a pattern from Warm Weather Knits, by Deborah Newton. The pattern is for a sun dress (“Peridot Dress” pgs. 56-61 if you have the book) which requires two nearly-identical panels to be knit for the front and back, then stitched together.

I discovered a problem only after finishing both panels and attached the upper parts; somehow, despite how often I re-counted, I found that the back panel was 8 rows shorter than the front panel. So I had the possibly brilliant, possibly idiotic idea to unravel the panel from the bottom, where I hadn’t done any finishing work yet, and knit on the extra 8 rows by working the pattern backwards. However, I’m now growing very concerned because the pattern won’t unravel simply, and that tells me that it may not be possible to knit it on backwards either.

Here is the relevant portion of the original pattern:

For the first four cm after casting on, work the following pattern:
Row 1 (RS) knit across.
Row 2 (WS) *k4, p2, k4; repeat from * across
Row 3 (RS) *k3, right twist, left twist, k3; repeat from * across
Row 4 (WS) purl across

“Right twist” means: “k2 together but do not slip st from needle; insert rh needle between the sts just knitted together, and knit the first st again; ten drop both sts from lh needle together.”

“Left twist” means: “insert rh needle in back of 2nd st on lh needle, then knit this st, do not drop sts, then knit first st as usual; then drop both sts from lh needle together.”

After this patten has been worked for 4 cm to create a border, you transition into another pattern. My missing 8 rows should be a part of this pattern. But I haven’t even gotten that far as it’s taking me so long to unravel the border pattern detailed above. Now I’m not sure that I’ll be able to re-do it and I’m panicking. If I have to re-do the entire panel it will mean many, many hours of work lost.

Does anyone have any tips? Suppose I just cut the border part off, then re-knit it from the bottom up and stitched it to the upper part? Would that work? Has anyone ever tried this before?

Thank you so much,
Mikaela

2

Hi and welcome!
Yes, I think your idea of knitting the bottom twisted stitch pattern from the hem up and then some of the second pattern is a good one. It may not be so straightforward to graft while maintaining the second pattern stitch (sort of a double leaf?) but I think that’s an easier fix than trying to knit the lower portion of the dress upside down. You’re sure the missing 8rows are in the skirt portion and not above the armhole bind off?
It’s a lovely dress and perfect for the coming warm weather.

3

Yes, unfortunately the missing rows are definitely in the skirt section…thank you very much for the link on grafting, I’ve never done it before!

4

What a pretty pattern! Did you try blocking both pieces to the same size?

5

It is very tedious to unravel from the cast-on edge, so you’re not doing anything wrong there. Just take it a stitch at a time and insert the needle as you go to keep your stitches.

As for knitting on the stitches, why not try working the twists in reverse and see if they look close enough to the original? Then you can just knit them onto the existing work. I think this would be immensely easier than trying to graft that many stitches.