I've been looking for, a black cardigan for years. It's not that there aren't plenty of black cardigans out there, it's just that not one fitted my criteria. I want a long-ish one that buttons up. Most don't have closures at all and that drives me crazy because the open fronts flap against my arms when I walk. With the year long project of the long, long "My Year In Temperatures Scarf" finally done (more on that in a future blog post), I finally have the time and space to start another large project.
Enter the black
Roosevelt Cardigan. Although a plain black cardigan would have been okay, this one, with its intricate cable pattern and shaped pockets, will be so much more challenging and fun to knit.
Of course the potential for mistakes is much higher too! See that wonky bit right there?
That's a mis-crossed cable and I didn't spot it until I had knit at least another 20 rows. I knew the error would drive me crazy so I resolved to carefully drop just those 4 stitches down until I could correct the mistake and ladder them back up again.
It's actually a 6 stitch cable but I only had to drop down 4 stitches since there was a decrease right above this particular cable crossing which reduced the stitch count by 2. I'm so glad I remembered that before I dropped all 6 stitches down!
With a white paper towel inserted into the sleeve it was much easier to see what I was doing. I used a double pointed needle and a cable needle to recross the cable in the proper direction.
From there I used a crochet hook to pull the "working yarn" from each row back through each stitch and onto the crochet hook, all 4 dropped stitches in a row, before transferring them back to the double pointed needle and moving up to the next higher unravelled strand of working yarn.
The transfer back to a double pointed needle each time was necessary so the hook would be facing in a convenient direction (try it, you'll see what I mean) and to take a twist out of the individual stitches.
It wasn't long at all and I had all of the stitches laddered back up and onto the main needles. The laddered stitch furthest to left was loose, but I then took the time to work the excess yarn back into the 4 or 5 stitches to the right in each round.
Ta Da! Crisis averted and back to the knitting. I must say, I'm very pleased with the project so far.
