I have been working on my Exeter jacket again, after taking time off to knit Livvy. I finished the sleeves, and washed and blocked them:
The cable has a 16 row repeat. It is not one of those patterns that is instantly memorizable, so you have to pay attention. For anyone who is planning on knitting this, I have two tips, which will make it easier to navigate the cable.
- On the reverse rows (the even rows), you knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches. The yarn overs are always knit except on pattern Row 6, where they are purled. As long as you pay attention to the yarn overs on Row 6, the reverse rows are straightforward and need no concentration.
- The set-up row at the beginning of the patterning establishes some stitches as knit stitches and some as purl stitches. While you are cabling, you are crossing stitches in front and behind of other stitches, but it is always the case that knit stitches will be knit and purl stitches will be purled, except on rows 3 and 7. On row 3, a knit stitch becomes a purl when it is is cabled (twice), and on row 7, a purl stitch becomes a knit (also twice).
I really love this. I especially love the way it looks on the back of the jacket, where there are four columns of cables. I have only knit a repeat and a bit of the cables on the back, but you can get an idea of how great it looks with the four cable repeats
Now this is where we knitters have differing levels of tolerance. Some knitters will blithely ignore mistakes. They may fall into the school of thought whereby “mistakes” are charming proofs that the sweater is hand-made. (The fallacy of this is that machine-made knits are so shoddy these days, that mistakes are rampant.) Another group of knitters are fanatically anal-compulsive, and will rip out miles of knitting in order to correct any mistake, no matter how small or insignificant. This school of thought follows the “I will know even if no one else does, and it will forever make me unhappy” principle. I think the latter camp sometimes revel in their knitting masochism. I try very hard to fall into the middle. The sad truth is, I do a lot of frogging because I want things to be just right. However, I think it is sometimes important to ignore your inner perfectionist. Or at the very least, learn how to fudge. Behold!
First, I thread a tapestry needle with a small length of yarn:
Then I insert the needle at the bottom of the mistake, where I purled instead of knit, and I pull the yarn through.
Then I make a loop, and pull the yarn through the loop, as in the below photo. This will have the effect of embroidering a knit stitch on top of the purl.
When the yarn is pulled tight, we see a knit stitch, exactly where it should be.
I then repeat twice more:
Here is the final product:
Perfect! No one will ever know. And I didn’t have to rip. I won’t tell if you won’t.