Knit Police

A few years ago now, I met a creative knitter who displayed a great bit of knitting wisdom. From the moment I recognized what she was doing and she explained why, I appreciated this wisdom. It is such a simple way to avoid some major time consuming headaches that I feel that everyone could benefit from employing this little tactic. I've told many a knitter since then about it. So, you'd think I would learn. That I would grab onto this wisdom I am proselytizing and never let it go. But that would be a demonstration of my own wisdom, which is clearly lacking!

What is this golden tidbit? When I met Suzanne she was always knitting fabulous things which she herself had designed. Often she was knitting the main body of the piece and leaving the edges to be determined later. To enable herself to go back and knit an edge at the beginning of the piece without creating a bulky seam, she used a provisional cast on. Well, of course. This made sense. But then I realized than even when she had decided what the edging would be and had knit it up front, she still used a provisional cast on. Because, well, you never now when you might need to go back and change something. Basically, she used a provisional cast on for just about every project she knit. It's a brilliant idea. How many times have I have wanted to go back and make that sweater a little shorter, or a little longer, or change that ribbing? I'm telling you, this is wisdom in action. If you run out of yarn, you can always use a new color on all the edges if you haven't knit any of them yet, or you've used a provisional cast on where you can go pull it out readily.

Being sporadically wise, I have intermittently employed this technique. I'm always gleeful when I do. I often lament when I don't. My most recent project was a case in point.

It was supposed to be a rather simple idea and it was such a small project that I boldly cast on and dove into my creative little ruffled edge before knitting the lacy smoke ring. I had one skein of yarn and was just going to knit until it ran out. A quick little project to whip out demonstrating a beautiful piece you can get out of approximately 225 yards of yarn.

I worked my way through it, calculating increases in a shifting lace pattern. I was moving along at a steady pace and felt pretty good about the work. Finally, I'm binding off. Every one is "ooh"-ing and "ah"-ing over it and I'm proudly putting it on my head to see how it looks. And, it's beautiful! Well, except for that odd ruffle at the top. You can't really tell that it's meant to be a ruffle, and, well, it just looks kind of messy. It needs to come off!

Off?! But I was so sure! And this yarn is so fine and so expensive, I can't just cut it. Had I only channeled Suzanne and done that provisional cast-on, I'd be golden. But, of course, I hadn't and I would have to painstakingly pull the yarn through every stitch for 4 rows of a ruffle to salvage the yarn and re-knit the front edge. Oh, and that ruffle ends right at the beginning of the lace pattern, so I have to watch out when I'm putting those stitches back on the needle that I don't lose any yarn-overs and start a nightmare where I just have to knit the entire thing over again.

It took me longer to pull those stitches out and re-mount them on a needle than it did to knit the whole darn thing. I swear! Ok, maybe not. But if felt like it. I should have taken photos, but I couldn't bear it. I just wanted to get it over with.

It's done now. You can see the finished item in the post before this one. But what I really hope is finished is my stupidity. Really, this is such a simple thing. Provisional cast-on. Provisional cast-on. Provisional cast-on.

Perhaps I need a new project mantra. Perhaps I need Knit Police. "Ma'am, Knit Police here. Have you used the provisional cast-on? What's that? You haven't? Come with us, please...." That'll learn me.

Of course there are probably a billion other things I could use Knit Police for, as well. It would be far more useful than Fashion Police. You can't really change how someone sees color or visualizes pattern combinations, but you can teach someone methodologies and help them use discipline to enhance their knitting experience.

I wonder what the Knit Police would wear? And what tools they would carry for prevention and enforcement? What would their emergency number be?