My friend EZ1 started a knit blanket over twenty years ago for a grandchild. She knit a few inches and realized she definitely did not enjoy knitting, she prefers to crochet. Since it is acrylic, she gave it to me to knit for the sisterhood blanket project. I marked where she stopped with a bit of red thread, and started knitting.
She chose a pattern with an easy repeat. To me, it’s a simple variation on a Mary Thomas pattern, a broken check. It’s the type of pattern a knitter who can read the fabric can pick up and start working, without a written pattern.
Things seemed fine for a few rows, until they weren’t.
I kept going a bit longer and realized something was not right.
So I ripped out what I’d knit.
Then I knit it again.
With almost the same issue.
I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
I told her, we laughed about it. It’s a simple pattern. So, what was I doing wrong? I kept up this process for at least a week: knitting a row, then ripping it out again.
I set it aside for another week or two.
When I picked it back up, my issues were obvious. It was definitely a PEBYAN2 ! There were two issues with my counting.
First: I was knitting a different count for the border stitches so everything was off by one. It is obvious what it should be. I just decided I wanted a different number.
Second: on one of the internal pattern repeats, I miscounted the pattern stitch, working 9 stitches not 10, so again, I was off by one. And once one repeat had the wrong count, more of the broken checks did because there was no longer a rhythm to the stitch repeat.
Combined, no wonder I was having issues! Once again I ripped out what I knit.
Before I started again, this time I added a stitch marker to each of the borders.
I am an experienced knitter, people pay me to teach them and/or fix their problems.
Stitch markers are not a sign of weakness, but of strength.
There was a time I thought only beginners needed stitch markers. They are an aid to getting my work done (in this case knit proper stitch pattern over the correct number of stitches) as much as my glasses are to being able to see. All I needed was markers at each border and the rest has seemed to fall into place.
This week I was delighted to learn I can work this pattern at coffee in the morning, without messing up, thanks to two simple stitch markers. It’s exciting to finally make progress on this project.