Lovely people gave me two buckets of cotton yarn, much of it variegated. What ho! A cotton coverlet knit on my Bond Incredible Sweater Machine which has an extension and parts from the Bond Ultimate Sweater machine! Now that is a great idea!
SO...I sat down and started. Because of the size of the bed, the coverlet is being knit in five strips. Weeks ago I started, casting on 75 stitches for the width of the strips. After knitting two of them, I thought I would like to make the middle one a bit wider so I cast on 110 stitches for that one.
Central coverlet strips laid out on bed so you cannot see the error at the top! |
When I held the two strips together the second strip was WAY TOO LONG! How had my math failed me so badly?! Well, however it happened, it really did, so I was back to the drawing board with figuring. Rather than tear out the long strip rows, I cast on the 110 stitches for the middle strip and went to town knitting up the strip as quickly, but consciously as possible as I HATE IT when the carriage comes off the stitch bed or when the stitches come off the stitch bed and have to be replaced...so time-consuming.
The left strip is WAY too long and the center strip too short |
Now I have three strips of three DIFFERENT lengths...a pretty kettle of fish. What to do, what to do (again!)...
What I did: First I basted one side section together with the middle section with ravel cord. That was not that enjoyable so I decided to mattress stitch the second side section to the middle. It took a long time but by the time I finished I had come up with a plan, so I mattress-stitched the first side section to the middle, pulling out the ravel cord as I went.
With the three strips together I could address the different lengths issue. What I decided to do was to pick up the stitches on the shortest (middle) strip with a circular needle, in this case a US size 8 needle about 29 inches long, and begin knitting it up to meet the correct length strip using the yarn that I unraveled-as-I-went from the too long section.
Knitting up the center strip to match the correct length right strip |
It is working but taking a while. The rest of the plan is that when I finish that...getting all three strips the same length, I will then return the sewn-together strips to the Bond machine and "seam-as-I-go", which will be somewhat of a bear project as the coverlet is so big, heavy, and awkward, but then when I get to the right number of rows, I will stop knitting.
What was going to be strip four before new plan |
So far I have not come up with a plan for the finishing AROUND the coverlet, but I still have the hours of hand-knitting the central section, and the hours knitting the other two strips to figure it out. I will post that plan when it comes!
Just as I am writing this I remember the Barbara Walker Learn To Knit Afghan project I started a couple of years ago. Maybe I should have finished that one instead! Well, if I get this project completed in the next few days, perhaps I can get rolling on Barbara Walker again...
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