Monotony is the mother of invention

Well, no, that’s not quite the quote but it fits the situation. I’m at the point in my Stone Walls vest from Folk Vests where you reserve the underarm stitches and split for the back and front, working on back-and-forth on straights.

On the whole it’s coming together well, baring the part at the beginning of the split when I tried to do it after knitting into the wee hours of Sunday morning (I live a very exciting life) and tried to decipher Cheryl’s really quite simple instructions for what stitches to put onto waste yarn and messed it up so magnificently that I was baffled when I picked it back up again after having had some sleep for once. Apparently I thought my arms were about eight inches apart. Once I got myself back on track in that area it’s been a steady trek towards finishing the back. Except for the flipping.

I learned how to cable without a cable needle many years ago while knitting Sedgemoor but I’ve always flipped the whole project around to knit a cable twist to the left to grab the stitches from behind. It’s never annoyed me before, but after flipping the increasingly heavy vest plus straight needles plus circular needle that the stitches for the front are waiting on back and forth and back and forth every few stitches for the passing rows that I figured out how to cable to the left without flipping. Nothing special, I’m sure it’s been done a million times but with some creative sliding of stitches and a little crossing of the eyes it can be done with a little scoop-to-the-front move. It’s sped things up considerably, too. Let’s see if I can keep it up! And maybe take some action photos.

On that note, I know of the technique of never flipping your needles while knitting back-and-forth on straights and knitting…backwards…when you work your way back across the row but I’ve never been able to figure it out. What about you?