As I was pondering starting a new sweater project, I thought I would check my other in-progress sweater/cardigan projects to see where I am on each of them. I knew it would give me a kick in the pants regarding those, and I know I really don’t need to start another sweater until I finish at least one of the ones I have currently on the needles.
Affiknity is a sweater that has cables, and the project I was thinking of starting also has cables.
I pulled it out of the bag, and tried to figure out where I was. It took me forever. And I don’t think I necessarily had it right when I knit another couple of rows. Each time I got into the cable charts (there are a couple that you knit at the same time), I’d be fine until I got to the middle and it just seemed… off.
I read back over my notes regarding the progress/project, and realized I was already thinking of re-starting it before my vision issues. I had been making all of my purl stitches using the “lazy” or backwards purl. When I knit hats in the round, I really like doing that for ribbing, because it makes the knit stitches beside those purls very tidy (compared to the normal purl stitch). So I thought I’d continue with that for Affiknity.
But Affiknity is not knit in the round, and I think that knitting back and forth alters the way the stitches look. To correct the stitch orientation from the lazy purl (and not have twisted stitches), you have to knit through the back loop of the knit stitches instead of the front loop.
So… I decided I’m not going to do that any more. In fact, I restarted the project (yes, that photo above is my restart progress which looks a lot like my original progress!). I had only knit a little more than halfway through one of the charts, so ripped that all out and the back piece over with a new ball (just to start fresh). re-wound the used yarn, and I’ll use it later in the sweater.
Now that I’m not having to think about re-orienting every knit stitch, the knitting is actually going pretty quickly, even with cables.
Oh, and I had spent some time thinking this was going to be a cardigan before I looked – nope, I’d originally decided to do the pullover. I guess I have a little bit of time before I decide if I want to change that, since I am knitting the back piece first.