kitchener fail

[geeksdoitbetter]

i had the oddest kitchener fail last week

was working the toe of the latest sock

and, it was as if i was stitching together two pieces of garter stitch, rather than making a join with two bits of stockinette

i wove back, started over, checking my stitch count, made sure i was beginning the same as always (front purl off)

and, still

garter ridges appeared across the toe

wacky

anyone else?

(i'll get a close up pic later tonight)

Comments

[heavenlyevil]

I haven't had this happen recently, but it has happened to me before. I fixed it by turning the sock inside out (still on the needles) and doing the grafting again. I still got the ridges, but they were on the inside of the sock that time and the outside was as it should be.

[geeksdoitbetter]

that makes sense

i'd stared at it for a full 5 minutes, trying to remember if every other time i'd turned the socks inside out before and had just forgotten this time

[aedifica]

That sounds like what used to happen to me when I used to knit through the back loop--when you kttbl, you don't twist the stitches, and so when you follow the kitchener directions of "as if to knit" and "as if to purl" it ends up looking like you have one purled row across the toes.

[geeksdoitbetter]

hrm

this would make sense if my last row of knitting had been thru the back loops, then?

well, i *was* knitting on the train so anything's possible, but i'm fairly certain i wasn't twisting the stitches on that last row

[aedifica]

I *think* it's not about which way the last row was knitted, but about which way you put the yarn through when you're grafting. (When I used to kttbl, I didn't know that's what I was doing--so any time I had directions to do anything "as if to knit" it was the same to me as if it had said "as if to purl," and I always wondered why they made a distinction. :-)

[geeksdoitbetter]

now *that* is fascinating!

i can totally buy the idea that my actual kitchenering stitches were being twisted

the whole "purl front then knit back then do the hokey pokey" of the kitchener process does make me pause to try and remember how to place the needle

i think we might have a winner!

[aedifica]

"purl front then knit back then do the hokey pokey"

Hee! It really is, yeah. :-)