Lapsing. . .

Even though I wrote this post LAST TUESDAY while sitting in the chiropractor's office waiting for my treatment, it has taken me this long to get it up and posted.  I could whine about how much I've been doing, but really?  I honestly don't think I'm busier than most.  I just think that when I spend four and a half hours monitoring students during summer school on the computer every morning, I'm ready for some time away from technology.

I'm getting wildly excited about time in Portland at Sock Summit.  I'll be visiting friends and helping out Jennie the Potter in the vending area while I'm there.  This weekend I've done some shopping for that trip, as well as packing for my week in the woods at Michfest that will begin IMMEDIATELY upon my return from the summit.

Somehow, in the midst of that, I thought I'd be able to spin every day, as well as get a cloud chaser vest done prior to leaving.  I think I may have taken leave of my senses.  No spinning to speak of happened last week, but I was AMAZING during the first week of Tour de Fleece!  I may have the vest done up to the collar if I'm lucky, and plan to bring it for knitting while in Portland if that is the case.

As time seems to accelerate, I'm sucking the life out of summer.  What with crazy amounts of time for annual checkups (I'm in perfect heath, thank you!), multiple days on the water in my kayak, learning about and becoming a vegan, an online class about knitwear design, and plenty of time with friends, it is turning out to be the best of summers!  A friend reminded me recently, that the best is yet to come. . .since my trips are still on the horizon.

I hope that you and your family are enjoying the season as much as I am!

The post I wrote last week?  here it is:

Tour de Fleece, and Cleaning up Mistakes
I'm spinning as fast as I can! My first week of spinning looked like this:







And I'm currently working through an alpaca/angora/camel batt. I know I've improved my spinning skills with all of this dedicated spinning time, because I was even able to spin by the firelight of a small campfire on Friday night. To say I'm getting the feel of things may be an understatement.

I'm also working on a Cloud Chaser vest, hoping to have it complete by Sock Summit. I knit just before falling asleep last night, woke up this morning and knit some more, and then I noticed my mistake.




Can you see it? I have a cable crossing in the wrong direction!

So I carefully removed the offending five stitches.



And ripped them back.



Then, using another needle, picked up those five stitches,



And began to knit them up (making sure I crossed the cables properly this time!)



The trick to doing this well, is to use a double ended needle, and to focus in on just the portion of the knitting that you need to repair on the chart or directions you are using. Typically, I use a double point needle, but this morning I happened to have a circular needle handy, so that's what I used.

When you try this on your own knitting, you'll want to work the ladders of ripped knitting in order from the bottom to top. It's easy to get them crossed, so take your time. You will also want to work at distributing the yarn from each ladder over all of the stitches you are re-knitting. You'll see in the finished picture of my repair, that the stitches on the left of the cable area bit looser.  I'm not going to stress about that too much, as I know everything will come out in the wash. . .the tension will even up when I give it a good soak during blocking, and over time will become invisible.

Here's hoping you never have to fix a mis-crossed cable, but if you do. . .I hope this helps!