OMG Help!

I seriously want to cry right now, and practically was earlier.

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/AmandaPanda62/neptune-baby-throw I’m making this for my friend. She’s due March 8th!!! I was halfway done today, however I just noticed a mistake 2 rows back.

I didn’t know what to do, so I tried watching youtube to see how to put in a life line and then rip back. I absolutely didn’t understand a single video and where to weave in the yarn at. So I very carefully ripped back past the mistake and tried my best to re-knit the active stitches, and it’s going disatorously. I’m like so ready to just throw this thing away, but I know it has to be fixable SOMEHOW. I wasted so much time and I don’t even know if it’s fixable now. How ever am I going to fix it if I can’t rip back properly???

Does anyone have any good videos that really show how to insert the yarn needle, and where…in a garter stitch? I could only find stuff on stockinette stitch.
I might try and call a local knitting store tomorrow and see if they’d be willing to help me…I dunno if they will, but I figured I’d ask here in the meantime. Cause right now I’m so worked up about it I just want to cry. I’ve been working on this thing for the past month. :waah:

First - breathe, it’s not that bad.

Garter st, stockinette, it really doesn’t matter, you put the needle into the sts however you can. The Tips page has a video on reinserting the needle. I like to have the yarn at the end of the row on the L edge, then take out the sts on the next row one by one while putting the needle into each stitch as it gets freed up. It helps to use a smaller needle and the sts won’t run if you don’t stretch the edge.

I use the same method for pickng up after frogging. Don’t worry even if a st pops out and down to the next row, just put it onto the needle. You can correct single sts that have dropped down when you come to them as you re-knit the row.

As for picking up stitches “the right way” (meaning, properly oriented on the needle), I never worry too much about that when I first pick them up. My first and foremost goal is to try to catch all of the stitches before they slip down to the next row. THEN after I’ve got all those little devils on a needle, I go back and make sure they’re oriented correctly on the needle (see the correcting mistakes videos on this site for how stitches should look on your needle).

It can be a tedious process doing it this way, for sure, but this is a method that works well for me. Plus, I figure eventually I’ll get the hang of picking the stitches up right the first time, but until then . . . it’s a two-step process!

Thank you all SO much!!! I think I may have fixed it. :woohoo:

I watched all those help videos and I VERY carefully ripped back 2 more rows, but did it one stitch at a time and just inserted the needle one at a time. I think it worked much better, and I have since knitted 2 more rows and everything looks ok now. THank you sooooo much, I was so upset yesterday when that happened. I think I will though put a life line where I’m at now before I start decreasing again…just incase it happens again! I think what happened was I got messed up where I knitted 2 together to decrease it (and I’m using 2 colors at time, so essentially that’s 4 strands of yarn) and I think maybe 1 of them got slipped. So better safe than sorry!

Oh, yeah. It’s easy to miss picking up one of those yarns with the needle tip when you’re doing two or more strands. Sometimes you’ll have a few strands that are just right and one that has too much slack. It helps if you stop knitting every so often and run your fingers down the entire section of combined yarns to smooth them out.

Yeah I’ve been doing that all along. BUt I think it just got messed up when I did the knitting 2 together…which was then 4. Lets hope it doesn’t happen again. I talked to my friend and she already said she’s starting to get sporadic contractions!! EEK, I better hurry it up and finish!!!

I wouldn’t hurry too much! Better to get her a late present after the baby’s born than no present at all, which could happen if you “speed things up,” get frustrated, and throw the horrible thing in the back of the closet!!

I’ve given many a baby blanket late and learned that early or late, they’re ALWAYS appreciated!

So, take a deep breath, slow down, and concentrate on doing it right!

Most ladies get mild contractions during the last month, it doesn’t mean the baby’s on its way that soon. They do actually make labor a little easier.

Take it easy yourself, baby won’t notice if your blanket isn’t ready at birth, and mom and dad will be too busy. So it’ll be fine if it’s not done for a couple more weeks.