DPN DISASTER!

I settle down for the evening, Shedir in hand, eagerly anticipating it’s finish. Nope. Sorry. Not to be.

I was flying along, decreasing left, decreasing right, the beautiful star pattern taking shape under my fingers. I had reached row 71 when it was clear I need to switch to the dpns. Now, I’ve mentioned before that I’ve never used them. So I called Jen. She wasn’t home – probably out knitting with the girls in her neighborhood. So I consult my Vogue Knitting: the Ultimate Knitting Book. Got to say, not really that helpful. I pop on the Internet – looking for a good video or something. I find something that says you use the extra needles to knit (insert deep blush here). Ah. Now it makes more sense. So I go back and I start knitting. Except it’s all purl stitches now and for some reason I cannot do the purl when going from one needle to the next. (In the end I purled the last stitch on one needle then slipped it to the next – seemed to work.) In the meantime – I don’t realize it but I’m dropping stitches all over the place. Calmer is really hard to grab when you’ve dropped a stitch, especially on size three needles. The yarn splits really easily. Now I’ve got needles everywhere, cable needles trying to grab lost stitches and I’m about to start crying. I try to move the stitches back to the circulars so I can feel like I have more control as I try to pick up these lost babies – but the pattern is so funky I can’t tell where things have been knit, or purled or twisted or cabled and now I’m really crying. The only thing I can see to do is RIP IT OUT!

And I do. At first I try to go back to where there are no lost stitches and I attempt to put it back on the circulars again. But I keep losing more stitches because anytime I try to put that needle in those teenytiny stitches I lose the one next to it. My whole body is sweating. I swear. I’m working so hard on this little hat. My back is killing me today from the tension. Who said knitting wasn’t a good workout!

Finally I’m like fuck it! I can’t take it anymore and the martyr in me comes out and decides to RIP OUT THE WHOLE THING! I get down a couple of more rows and I’m getting a certain amount of obscene pleasure in the whole thing when WHAMO! my brain relaxes enough to figure out the problem. I think, why not try one more thing to save what I have.

I run and get some purple Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton and thread it onto a tapestry needle and I start running it through the stitches. PRESTO! It’s working. I managed to save all of the stitches and get them on the yarn. Then I try weaving in the circular and by god it’s working! I’ve saved the Shedir!

Okay, now to figure out where I’m at. Of course, in all the confusion, I lost my stitch marker at the beginning of the row, but that’s not to hard to find since I’ve got the string hanging from the cast-on. The best thing I did was stop ripping before what was to be the first stitch. I worked backwards with the pattern so I could figure out what row I was on and found the beginning point no problem. I was back in business.

In the end, I had to rip out 20 rows. I was back at row 54, which was a really good place to end up. I was past the pattern repeats and ready to start decreasing again. In fact, I think I ended up right where I had started that evening. I did some more work and went to bed at around row 60. I slept like a baby.

When I finish it tonight (and I WILL finish it) I know I will feel much more confident about those dangit dpns. Let’s just say I won’t be trying socks any time soon.

PS – One problem I had with the Shedir pattern – when I got to row 63 the way the graph works it looks like you’re supposed to slip the last stitch to the other side of the stitch holder, but there’s no star next to the row – which all the other rows have when this happens. So I didn’t do it at first, but it became very clear that you’re supposed to. Easily rectified – not a criticism of the pattern, just something another beginner might mess up.

PPS – Add to the drama the fact that the little ball of yarn is getting smaller and smaller – I really don’t believe one ball is going to do it. I will be shocked. It’ll be like a Hanukkah miracle!