Rip-it, rip-it ...

... is the sound a frog makes.

When I ripped out my knitting, it didn't make a sound.

First up was a shawl I knit 2 years ago. It is called the Woodland Shawl and it is made exactly as the pattern prescribes, with one 100gr ball of sockyarn.

It was too small. There was no way for me to use it. So I had decided to rip it out and last weekend I finally did.

Here is the before picture (Ravelry link to the project)



And here is the after picture (I frogged it straight onto the ball winder)

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The second thing I ripped out was a mitten I had started. This is how it looked:



I have marked out three different sections in the photo. You can see that section 2 is slightly bigger than section 1, which is because I was being super careful knitting all the three colors at the same time. In section 2 I was also being careful that the knitting wouldn't pucker up when I switched colors.

First I knit the mitten up to section 2 and then they got some rest because I was focusing on another stranded project, the Space Invader socks. During the time I made the socks I learned a lot about knitting with two colors at the same time, particularly for the second sock as I wove in the color that was not in use instead of carrying it over long distances, but I also became skilled at knitting with one strand in the left hand and the other in the right hand. That method is both faster than what I did previously (which was to hold both strands in the left hand) and I also found that my knitting was more even and it didn't pucker in like before.

So when I started section 3, my stranded knitting skills had vastly improved. You can tell by comparing section 3 to section 1 that the knitting is more smooth and also that the gauge is different from previous sections, i.e. it is smaller around. When I noticed this I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to rip it out.

So needless to say, the mittens went on a hiatus for a while to ease the pain. I also knew that when I re-knit them I would have to use a larger needle. I had been using 2.25 mm needles (2 circs), but had had doubts that it would be large enough (they are not for me), so when I saw that the gauge was getting tighter, I realized I had to knit them on at least 2.5 mm needles.

I ripped them down to the cuff and they looked like this afterwards:



I was hard to pick up the stitches, not because they would unravel, but because I was using a slightly bigger needles on already tiny stitches. But I prevailed and ended up with the correct amount of stitches.

This mittens have more of a story behind them but it is not the right time to reveal that story now.