It could happen to you. You find a pattern you love and start knitting away. You’ve attached the arms to the sweater. Everything is going well until you notice that the only way you can wear this garment is to move one of your arms to the middle of your back. The scarf that looked so seductive, fluffy and wide in the picture is now coming to a point. If you’re like most knitters, you probably didn’t read over the pattern before you started and may have missed important phrases such as “at the same time as” or “repeat five times unless making size L, then repeat 8 times.” That kind of trivial stuff.
The Knitting Truth Is Out There
So what do you do? If you’re in a knitting group, they may not meet regularly enough to help you navigate this emergency. You don’t want to frog (knitspeak for ripping the stitches out) the thing and start over. But you need help. Weeping onto your knitting won’t help. Moisture shrinks wool, which is not good.
Ravelry: Victory Over Knitting Challenges
First, find your way to Ravelry, an online knitting and crocheting community that boasts a few thousand members around the world. Chances are if the pattern has been published anywhere, there is at least one person on Ravelry who has tried it and worked out some of the kinks. Some popular designers and publications have groups devoted to them, and that’s a good place to start if you know where your pattern came from. Sometimes designers such as Annie Modesitt and Stephanie Japel are on the site and will answer questions directly.
For example, search Japel’s “Therapi” pattern on Ravelry. You’ll find that 15 knitters are either working on or have completed the sweater, which was published as a free pattern in the winter 2008 issue of Knitty, a popular online knitting magazine. You can send them a message on the site, or look for discussions where it’s mentioned. There’s also forum discussion about the sweater where Japel explains the increase chart for the garment. You can also send a message directly to Japel (most knitting designers are helpful that way) if you’re still confused.
Online Knitting Assistance
Also, some sites that publish patterns will post errata and explanations of techniques on the site. Doing a Web search for a particular technique such as “intarsia” (color block knitting) or “grafting,” (joining two knitted pieces using un-knit loops) can also reveal helpful tutorials. Wikihow has good illustration of grafting off the needle, which is easier than doing it on the needle no matter what anyone else says.
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