a shedir near-disaster

So I was taking some UFO photos of a hat I'd been working on the other day when I noticed something. A mistake. In my otherwise perfect, glorious, tiny tiny cables.


First I took this shot of the hat, then I looked down and cursed every curse in the book:



Not seeing the problem? Check out this close-up of the offending region.





After breaking out in a cold sweat, pouring myself a healthy dose of liquor, and a quick google search, I rediscovered this post from the Yarn Harlot that I had read some time ago... She describes two methods for fixing this kind of thing: 1. "the proper way" (her words) and 2. "desperate measures" (aka a major cheat). While I'm normally the sort of lady that will head straight for the cheat, I noticed this "cheat" involved SEWING. Not sewing like sewing a seam (which I hate and completely suck at), but sewing like duplicate stitches and well, I'd rather create a giant unraveling hole in the middle of my cabled cashmere hat than do ANYTHING that resembles SEWING. So I opted for "the proper way." Of course, I documented the experience. I don't know why. It's not like that would save my knitting if I screwed it up beyond repair. Something sick and twisted that resides deep in the depths of my soul made me do it. And I could NOT have done this without that Harlot tutorial. Thank you, Harlot. You saved my ass. This explanation that follows is just that - an explanation of what I did. If you want a tutorial head over to the Harlot.


Step 1: I isolated the stitches that would have to be unraveled in order to make this cable, well - cable, instead of march straight along like it is doing in the pictures seen above. Since I had already knit a couple cable twists beyond the one in question a total of 4 stitches were involved - not just the two in the middle that should have cabled, you see, because later on they traveled, and twisted around some other stitches and they allll got involved in this mess. So first I followed those four stitches down below the row where the error occurred and stuck a circular needle through them to hold them so the entire thing wouldn't unravel.







Step 2: I unraveled, and realized I had stuck the needle through the wrong stitches. Oops. No biggie - I just shifted everything one stitch to the right, and exchanged that stumpy bamboo needle for a slick, stabby metal one and took a deeeeep breath. Here it is, all unraveled past the error.







Step 3: I found the bottom-most one of those scraggly pieces of yarn and used that metal needle (which was a US 2, a slightly smaller size than I knit the rest of the hat on, just to make the reconstruction a little bit easier) and knit the row that had the error in it - CORRECTLY this time.







Step 4: I breathed. I took a sip of that drink. Again, I found the bottom-most scraggly, unraveled yarn and used it to knit up another row. Again and again, until I had this:







PERFECT. Angels were singing. I stopped sweating. It was a great day. This hat, you see, is a Christmas present for my dear friend Cassie. And had I given her the hat with the cable error in it, although she may not have even noticed, I would KNOW. And every time I would look at my friend after that, forevermore, all I would see would be screwed up cables, and it would ruin our friendship. Forever. And I just can't have that.


Tired of looking at the same hat? Me too. I knit this one in record time. I cast on late on the 22nd so I'd have a plane-friendly project to take to Oregon for Christmas, and finished it on the 27th, as my parents and I were arriving on the Oregon coast. I'm sure it will be received well. I'll make the official FO post soon and I promise, I'll keep it brief!