Picking up a dropped stitch – the marathon!
I’m in the process of knitting a pair of socks, toe up, two at a time on circular needles. This is the first time I’ve tried this technique – I like it very much as my socks will both be finished at the same time AND they’ll be the same size. Since this is a “learning” project, I’m just using some inexpensive Red Heart “Heart & Sole” yarn, rather than digging into my stash. Here’s a picture of the socks taken part way through the project:
Heart & Sole Socks in progress
As you can see, it’s a simple pattern – I’m just doing stockinette stitch for the whole thing until I get to the cuff, where I’ll switch to ribbing for about an inch and a half. I’m also doing an ‘afterthought heel’ for the first time ever, to keep the striping consistent and create a bullseye effect at the heel. That’s the last step after everything else is done.
Well, I’m nearing the start of my ribbing, so I decided to count stitches one final time to make sure everything was still on track. YIKES! One needle only had 33 stitches on it! I had fiddled with the stitches at the point where the needles cross a few rows back, so I assumed I must have accidentally slid one stitch over to the other side. Counted them, and nope, 34 on that needle. Oh oh – had a dropped a stitch at some point? I started closely inspecting the socks and found where I had dropped a stitch – way down about 3 or 4 inches up from the toe – yup – about 10 inches back! Oh dear. At this point, I had to put the socks away for a few hours and move on for a while:)
Well, came back to them last night and started picking up the dropped stitches with a crochet hook. Things were going slow, and I was tired so I only did a few rows before retiring. This morning, I picked up again, and struggled with it for a while, having difficulty due to the small guage. After contemplating things for a while, I decided to try helping things along by using a #0 needle to lift the previous stitch up and out so I could more easily bring the new one I’d picked up with the crochet hook through without catching part of the new stitch. WOW. It worked like a charm and I managed to bring the dropped stitch back up to the top of the sock relatively smoothly and quickly. The downside is that now I have a sort of ridge where the stitches are tighter in that line and puckering the fabric a bit. I assume (hope) this will all come out in the wash so to speak. Regardless of whether or not it does though, at least I’ll have a wearable pair of socks that won’t run on me! Up till now, I’ve only brought up dropped stithes two or three rows, so I’m pretty pleased with myself!