Dry Fit the Pieces

Finally forced myself to sit down with a mug of encouragement and finish the fronts of the Twist & Shout cardigan. (go all the way back to December blogs) This one hit a dry spell. It was just decor on the coffee table for weeks. But now I need it done! I know the exact date of the first wearing. So I am back in focus.

The instructions for the fronts were confusing at first. I still can't decide if what I knit is what the pattern wanted me to knit - but it looks OK. Even better, the fronts match the back at that all important arm hole/sleeve area.

Talk about a good thing that I always work two fronts or two sleeves at the same time. All of the cabling, decreasing, binding off and worrying about matching the back armhole shaping got the better of me. When I focused in on the final 24ish rows I had to read, read, sketch, count and read again. Just could not 'see' the way it was going to work because every time I counted there were either 3 or 6 rows more than there should have been.

Ended up writing my own version of the detail for each row and what happened on the right front and on the left front. Only then did it click in. Even the row count was working out to match the back. Somehow my mind kept missing that bind off for shoulder slope and bind off for neckline can not happen on the same row for each front. On the left front the shoulder was bound off on a right side row; the neckline was shaped on a wrong side row. And the OPPOSITE for the right front.

Toss in that shoulder bind off for the back was on every row - due to working one side on the RS and one on the WS. So, that was a total of 6 rows and I kept thinking that I needed to bind off the front 6 times. DUH - 3 on each front side times 2 sides actually equals 6. Who knew?

You know what? Once the brain clicks, the knitting is not so much. It is highly possible that more time was spent in the figuring out and rewriting than in the actual doing. But it is done.

The fronts, pre-blocking, dry fit well. I like it. Don't fret the center edge. It is rolling back in the photo. But it will be blocked and eventually a nice crochet edge will add a half inch to each front.

On to the sleeves!