I’m doing my first garment, a shell from KnitPicks. This is the first time I’ve ever knitted an article of clothing with gauge and everything, and I was overly cautious to say the least.
But with the wonder of the internet I tracked down the designer of the shell and e-mailed her. She was very helpful in getting me to understand the various instructions, and now I’m eight rows away from finishing the back.
Alas, those last eight rows are a killer, because after a week of wrangling and tinking and flat out frogging, I have realized the shoulder pattern is wrong. It’s missing a decrease stitch.
To add further angst, the designer is going offline for six weeks due to surgery and recovery, and I don’t want to wait six weeks for an answer as to where I add the decrease stitch. I have e-mailed her partner in hopes she’s familiar enough with the pattern to help me. KnitPicks sympathized when I called, and did see the error I was talking about, but couldn’t help me either.
I think I’m going to go ahead and work in the decrease stitch where I think it should go, but I was hoping for insight from other KnitDopers. What do you do when the pattern is wrong? My MIL has sweaters unfinished from five years ago, where the error was acknowledged but no one could tell her how to fix it.
First, I let my instincts decide how to fix the problem. For example, if a pattern is obviously missing a decrease stitch, then… I add a decrease stitch. To place it, I first look to see if previous decreases have formed a pattern. If they do, then I figure out how to continue that pattern, and do. If they do not, then I work from my past observation that decreases tend to be at the edges of the work. I pick my favorite edge and decrease.
If you are knitting the back of a shell, then I would guess–just based on how most knitting patterns are put together–that the decrease should be at the neck rather than at the armscye. Most armscyes are no longer decreasing, that close to the top.
I am knitting the Hourglass sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, right now, and my row gauge is way off. I didn’t have vertical space to do the last decrease round at the waist. So? I just didn’t do the last decrease round–and I won’t do the last increase round, either, so my stitch count comes out okay in the end.
Knitting really is more like cooking than like baking. You need to be flexible and be prepared to accept the outcome of your decisions.
Bitch like all #$&*ing hell (yes, Family Circle Easy Knitting, I’m looking at you), and then go on line to search for an error page or knitting blogs and the knitlist yahoo group, because chances are, I’m not the only one who is pissed off at the pattern. And maybe someone else has figured it out first.
If I can’t find anything, and it’s a straightforward enough pattern, I’ll work it out. So - pretty much what you’re planning to do, (put the decrease where you think it should be, write down what you thought, and keep going) It’s when they’ve screwed up on a hard, carefully counted, tricky pattern that it really sucks.
The decrease is on the shoulders, but it’s the way the pattern is designed. There’s increases and decreases that cancel each other out (according to the charts of the other measurements) and for some reason, the one for my measurement is missing a decrease stitch. If I don’t do it, I will end up increasing one stitch on my row.
I’ll Google Calliope Sleeveless Shell and see what pops up.