Ruthless Knitting Archive

Yesterday morning, I finished the front of my Buster sweater. Before breakfast today, I wove in the last of the ends. This is how many ends were involved in the front:

But I’m not sure even that picture is sufficient testament to how messy it was to knit this piece. This is what the front usually looked like when I wasn’t working on it and when the ends were in good order:

All the trouble was totally worth the result, however. This morning, I quickly reknit the top of the back (where it was too long and I’d used the defective yarn) and basted the two pieces together to try it on. I was worried that the ribbing on the bottom would be too tight, that the body would be bigger around than I wanted, and that the 15 inches I knit prior to beginning the armhole shaping would make the sweater too long, so imagine my relief when I discovered that it fits! I practically danced around the house in my pajama pants and slippers, I was so delighted.

This victory was somewhat hard-won, since I had to rip back and reknit about 4 inches of the back and 5 or 6 inches of the front. The problems with the front were the result of my failure to plan–I should have charted the whole front of the sweater from the beginning, but I was too lazy, and I thought I knew what I was going to do with the V-neck shaping. I did not. Ripping out sticky single-ply yarn knit in intarsia is not fun, and I have now officially learned my lesson: when you’re doing a patterned sweater, plan the whole front before knitting it. Got it.

After breakfast, I soaked and blocked both pieces, and now they look like this.

Sleeve Island lies ahead.

In other news, I e-mailed Nashua last weekend to let them know about the defective yarn, and I heard back from their marketing director on Monday morning before business hours even began on the East Coast. She apologized for the problem, located another ball of the same color and lot in the warehouse, and sent it to me by priority mail the same day, all free of charge. Furthermore, she asked if I would return a sample of the defective yarn so their spinner could take a look at it, and she thanked me for letting her know about the defect in the yarn while the project was still active so that Nashua had a chance to rectify the situation. I couldn’t be happier with this outcome or more pleased with the stellar customer service. Nashua is a class act.

P.S. My spring IK just arrived with the mail, so I can look at it over lunch. Whee!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Projects in Progress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.