Fix It Friday - Saturday Edition

So I'm cruising along on the Wool-Aid sweater I told you I started on again.

The front and back get done. I seam them together at the shoulder (3-needle bind off). And I even pick up the stitches for the collar and start knitting.

Things are feeling pretty good. Until I lay it on my lap and take a look. Something was off and my heart sank (a little).

Can you see it?

The purple stripe on the front isn't as wide ("tall") as the back.

Do you see it now? And it's not as long as the rest of the stripes either. Somehow I knit that one four rows short! I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I was working on that part either in the car on the way to camping or at the actual campout.

Obviously I need to stop and "admire" my knitting more often.

With so much being done on top of it (the whole front, seaming, the collar), I was not about to rip this back to the purple stripe. I knew it would require surgery -- that is, take out a row to get live stitches, knit the missing rows and then sew the whole thing back together. (Yes, pretty much all of my knitting fixes involve Kitchener. Good thing I like it.)

Since I'm working in stripes, I didn't have to cut any yarn. I could just start pulling out one row at the beginning of the purple where there was already a cut end.

 So I "unpicked" the stitches and put the released stitches onto needles:

You need a needle for both the stitches above the row you're taking out and the row below.

Once that was done, I had a sweater in two parts:

I attached purple yarn (from the ball) and knit three of the missing four rows on top of the tweed stripe. Et voila:

The fourth row was added by Kitchenering the two parts together. (To carry the surgery analogy a little further, this would have been the part where I rip off my mask and gloves and tell someone else to "close it up. My job is done here.")

The yarn is a single (or, one ply) and this means that it is relatively weak. I examined the long end resulting from picking out the row and it looked pretty good--not too worn from being pulled through all those stitches on its way out.

But when I started to sew with it, it came apart in a few spots. So I had a few more ends to work in than I originally thought I would:

That will just make it extra warm, right? :)

The tension of the Kitchenered row isn't quite the same as the knit rows, but it's not bad and I expect the difference will pretty much disappear after blocking.

I also missed a stitch about a third of the way. I didn't skip it entirely, but each loop should have two passes of the yarn through it, and two stitches beside each other only got one. (I jumped ahead one stitch.) Anyway, I didn't notice until I was nearly done and was counting the remaining stitches to make sure they were even. (They weren't.)

When I saw the issue, I decided not to take it out and fix it because the yarn wouldn't have been able to take the wear of sliding it through the loops two more times. (Once on the way back and once on the re-do.)

So, instead, I made the same mistake on purpose on the other side to even the number of stitches on the two needles. Not ideal, but it will affect neither the function nor aesthetics of the sweater adversely.

And here you go:

The purple stripe is now equal to the rest and the front is now equal to the back. The side seams aren't sewn yet, but I did get the collar done.

I improvised it from the pattern, which didn't have the crossover in the front. I think it makes a really nice neckline in looks, ease of getting it over your head, and warmth. I may fiddle with it some on the next one, but I think this looks good.