Falling off the Ledge

You know how it is when you start a new project and you’re all enthused?  You knit and knit and ooh and ah over your progress and don’t want to put it down for anything.

That’s how I feel felt about Hallett’s Ledge.

I cast on yesterday afternoon and happily knit my way through the ribbing.  When it came time to begin the decreases I plotted them all out in my notebook and began to tick them off as I worked each set.  By the time I went to bed I had several inches to show for my effort.

This morning I eagerly picked the sweater back up again and continued to work the ribbing.  I determined how long I wanted the lower half to be and worked a few extra rows to make up for the smaller row gauge of my DK yarn before beginning the increases.  Just after dinner I finally finished the ten or so inches of ribbing and prepared to begin the upper part of the sweater.  In only two days I’d knit about 2/3 of what it had taken me well over a year to accomplish on Fylingdales.  I was feeling great.

Then I counted my stitches and came up eight short.

Huh? 

It didn’t take long to figure out where I’d gone wrong.  Instead of decreasing every 4 rows once and every 6 rows 4 times I had decreased every 4 rows once and every 6 rows 6 times.  I’d obviously had six on the brain.  Sigh…

Resignedly, I frogged the sweater back to where I should have worked the final decrease and put the stitches back on my needle, ready to continue the pattern as written.  That’s when I realized that by doing so I would have to add an extra couple of inches between the last decrease and the first increase, significantly altering the lines of the sweater.  Blame it on the smaller row gauge and my long waist. 

Well, I’d rather do it right than do it quickly so I reworked the frequency of the decreases (every 8 rows 5 times) and ripped back a few more inches.  It’s on the needles again, ready to go, and with any luck I’ll be back on the ledge in a day or two.

I love knitting.  Especially ribbing. 

No, really…