Knitting the Lines Sweater

Fixing Mistakes

This post is going to start out with what is perhaps an embarrassing admission. The reason my lines sweater just wasn't working was because I followed the chart from left to right instead of right to left. As a result, none of my cross stitches were lining up to create those signature "v" patterns. I had to rip out my work a stupid amount of times before I finally caught on to what the problem was. After putting it away for a few days and knitting my Ponyfish beanie, I came back to my work and realized I was just following the chart in the wrong direction.

Even though I haven't been knitting that long in the grand scheme of things, I still felt so dumb for making such a simple mistake. It's hard to look at all the beautiful designs online by such talented people while at the same time, you're frogging for the millionth time because you couldn't follow a chart correctly. Ridiculous.

Thankfully, I was able to take some time, figure out my mistake, and gain back some motivation for the sweater. I've since finished knitting the yoke (just a day ago) and it's been a fun and beautiful design to see come into being. The texture of the yarn and cross stitches are really lovely to run my hands over as I turn the work over in my fingers. I've gotten to move on to the body of the sweater and with every stitch, I get more excited to wear the finished product.

Knitting and Finishing the Body

A few days ago, I finished knitting the body of my sweater. The body went smoothly, and at the end, the front and back halves are separated to make two little flaps of ribbing on either side. This went smoothly as well, but when it came time to bind off, I was met with another challenge. The tubular bind off. If you don't know what a tubular bind-off is, that's okay because I didn't either until very recently. Basically, it binds off your work in a way that makes the edges look rounded as if they curve around into themselves. It does finish the work nicely but also involves a lot of steps to accomplish the desired look. I watched a youtube video to learn how to do this technique and felt as if I was quite successful until I finished the entire edge and looked back at my work. Most of it looked great, but the beginning looked like someone (me) had just messily knotted the yarn around all the stitches.

I then entered a bargaining headspace about whether or not to leave it like that or go back and fix it. On one hand, it wasn't the entire bind-off, just a small section on one side. I also didn't want to take the time to undo such a complicated bind-off. However, I had spent many hours knitting the sweater and quite a bit of money on the yarn and pattern, so it seemed a shame to leave in a mistake that I knew I could fix. Of course, my perfectionism won out and I carefully un-did the edge and then re-did the entire bind-off. Was it super annoying? Absolutely. But the edge looks infinitely better now.

Knitting the Sleeves and Sewing the Collar

I finally escaped from sleeve island and finished my sweater! It's so rewarding to see something so long in the making come together at last. Now that it's summer here in Asheville, I won't be able to wear it, but it'll be waiting for me in my drawer when cooler weather shows its face again. Now, all that's left is to block it to size and let it dry. Thanks for following along with my Lines Sweater journey!