Wednesday 12 August 2015

Unravelling: One Square Forwards, Many Squares Back

After blogging about my happy rainbow blanket plans I got all the squares out and laid them on the floor, guesstimating how the final arrangement would look when I'd added in the new colours.

And then, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realised that some of the squares were the wrong size. In fact, quite a lot of them were. Sometimes you can get away with this when making a patchwork blanket - e.g. one slightly smaller square will stretch a bit when you sew it to surrounding larger squares - but lots of squares that were the wrong size? all sewn in colour rows so there'd be lines of large squares and lines of smaller ones? Disaster!

 

I don't know exactly how this happened, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that knitting blanket squares is what I do when I'm ill or tired-out at the end of a long day. Half-awake, germ-filled noggins are bound to make mistakes, I guess! Ah well.

There was nothing for it but to start unravelling the squares so the can be re-knitted to the correct size. Such a faff but it can't be helped (without the invention of time travel) and after all these hours of knitting I want this blanket to look great, not all lumpy and mis-shapen because I couldn't be bothered to correct my mistakes.


As you can see I've got quite a few squares to re-knit before I can start adding all those yummy new colours to the blanket. And don't be fooled by those "finished" pink squares. They're just squares I've not got round to unravelling yet!


I have, at least, managed to knit one square with one of my newly-purchased colours. Hurrah!


I'm going to be double-checking the size of my squares very carefully from now on...

5 comments:

Vikki said...

It's so frustrating when that happens. I used to just leave it and fudge everything together at the end, but one day acknowledged that the finished product is much more satisfying when it's correct. So ripping out is the way forward!

Unknown said...

I feel your pain! I just had to unravel half a cushion cover (ie HOURS of knitting) because I realised I'd dropped something on it that had stained. I hadn't even noticed! I've actually had to hide the wool for a bit because I just can't face starting again!
Hannah x

Unknown said...

Oh no! It's a pain when that happens!
Ah well, just means more knitting, right? :)

Silly Little Sheep said...

Oh, what a shame, but stuff like this happens... At least the yarn still can be used to make new ones, do not worry and keep going, every stitch puts you closer to completing your goal :)

Bugs and Fishes said...

Vikki - yes, I think it would drive me a bit nuts if I spotted a mistake and didn't correct it! And after putting in so many hours knitting all these squares I'd like the finished blanket to look as good as possible :)

Hannah - nooooo, how frustrating!

Rebekah - exactly! If I was just knitting this blanket because I wanted a blanket, I would have got bored long ago. The process (slow, relaxing, meditative) is most of the fun :)

Silly Little Sheep - "every stitch puts you closer to completing your goal" - that is such a great way to look at it, thank you x