Frogging

[afuna]

Frogging is the most unpleasant part of knitting by far. It's slow, it's tedious, and picking out your stitches one stitch at a time, the way I usually do it, just emphasizes that you're spending time undoing your work (and you'll need to redo this work again).

I have tried just ripping out the stitches many stitches at a time, and then picking up the free stitches below, and it feels faster, but it's a lot more scary. Also, I suspect that any time I gain in ripping out the stitches, I lose immediately when I miss picking up one of the free stitches, and have to fumble around that area.

It is possible to correct stitches without undoing whole rows, but (especially when it's a missed yarnover), sometimes there's just not enough slack in the area to fix it, without everything else looking weird.

Right now, frogging is doubly/triply painful, because I'm doing a baby blanket (don't ask which baby! I guess I'll store it until someone I know needs one), and a three hundred fifty stitch row is not fun to undo.

But! I'm excited because I just stumbled across a much faster way of frogging, by using a smaller needle to pick up stitches in the first good row, and then ripping back to it quickly. (Instead of ripping first and then picking up later).

One small tweak I've done is to pick up the stitches two at a time: through the right leg of one stitch and the left leg of the next stitch simultaneously. It means I'll need to pay attention to which leg I'll be knitting when it comes time to redo the row (always the right most leg, but the leg on the right might be either at the front or at the back), but the increase in speed is worth it.

I have seen people mention it before, but it just now hit me what they meant. It's like making a lifeline, but doing it after you've made the mistake. Most tutorials that talk about lifelines, which secures your knitting at a certain row so you can rip back to it quickly, also emphasize that you need to prepare your lifeline beforehand. (Kinda like committing at a known good point in your code, before going on to do riskier things!)

If you're anything like me, you will probably have been too lazy to make a lifeline, and then regretted that decision several rows later, when you're picking out stitches one at a time. v.v

I don't know if this technique works with more intricate lace knitting; I suspect that a lifeline might be safer, but for what is mostly simple stockinette, this works fine. And ripping out stitches is now fun :-D

Comments

[pinesandmaples]

Frogging is ripping out tons of stitches willy-nilly. Tinking is undoing each stitch one at a time. The difference? Tink is knit backwards.

I don't know if this technique works with more intricate lace knitting; I suspect that a lifeline might be safer,

Lace demands lifelines. Lace on tiny needles with tiny yarn mocks any knitter who dares go without a lifeline. (Or maybe just me.)

[snakeling]

If you do lace with hairy yarn, you can fudge it by increasing/decreasing, and nobody's the wiser. Of course, if someone looks really closely at the shawl I'm making, they'll see that there are a couple of lace flowers where I missed a hole or whatever, but seriously, if you have that kind of free time in your hands... :)

[afuna]

I have done that! I am hoping that no one ever peers closely at my hairy scarf *snerk*

[afuna]

Ahaha, oh I love that!

I have done lace without lifelines before, and have been bitten solidly in the neck by that decision. *g*

[pinesandmaples]

The only time I have openly wept over my knitting was a particularly delicate lace piece was damaged by airport screeners in a way that ripped the lifeline. The lace was mocking me, although I probably deserved it.

[afuna]

*winces* Feels like it's the airport screeners who deserve to be ripped. Not cool of them!

[ysobel]

Lacework really needs lifelines, IME -- with all the yarnovers and decreases and whatnot, it can be v. hard to figure out what is a stitch and what isn't.

But for straight stitching (like stockinette), the smaller needle as after-the-fact lifeline is def. awesome :D

There are also ways to fix a dropped or wrongly-done stitch or small number of stitches that does not involve frogging the entire thing back to the problem point.

[afuna]

Yeah, agreed about it being essential for lace. I need to get into the habit of doing lifelines (I've been avoiding intricate lacework because of it, and I want to trying it too *G*)

[jeshyr]

You can also do something very similar by grabbing a darning needle (very large blunt needle) and threading it with lifeline-ish stuff and sewing in your lifeline - it'd be similar to the stick picking-up you're doing with a small needle but if you had smallish stitches or no little needle handy it may be easier.

Glad your frogging is unpainful-er :)

[afuna]

Hee, that sounds pretty neat, too!

[jeshyr]

To be honest I've never done it as a lifeline thing - I never did the sort of knitting that needs much/any frogging!

It is, however, the best way to tie off the stitches at the top of a beanie - slide the knitting needle out and run a darning needle full of wool through each stitch then pull tight and tie off :)

[afuna]

Hee, yeah! I usually use the tail of the yarn, and then boom :D

I wonder if there's a way to keep the top of the beanie from protruding though. Mine always tends to look somewhat... nipple-like.

[jeshyr]

Quit decreasing when you're down to approx ... 20 stitches perhaps? Depending on stitch size, etc. About where the "base of the nipple" would be and gather your stitches there. You don't need to decrease past a certain point - having a tiny circular hole in the top of the hat isn't a problem.

[afuna]

Oh hm! I will try that next time. This issue has been stumping me, but I've been trying to fix it by making more decreases, rather than less!

[jeshyr]

The 'nipple' thing is because you have too many rows, so either quit decreasing earlier or decrease muchmuch faster. But if you imagine at the end part of a beanie you're basically knitting a shape that you want to resemble a flat circle - from the outside to the inside. That's how much you need to decrease each row. You basically have to k2tog every stitch and at some point that will fail. So look while you're knitting at the shape of the fabric and when it's not going to work just quit and stitch it shut :)

Best of luck!

r

[afuna]

I'm not quite following. In the first sentence, should that be "start decreasing earlier" rather than "quit decreasing earlier"?

And *grins* thanks for the tips. Will try to visualize that next hat I finish.

[jeshyr]

Not quite - I meant that when you have still perhaps 50 stitches (or whatever number you're finding you have at the "base" of the nipple then stop decreasing and run a drawstring through your stitches at that point.

One workable way to make a beanie that's good for raw beginners is to make a rectangle (think "very short scarf") of either garter or stocking stitch where the width is approximately equal to the distance from the top of the hat to the brim, and the length of the rectangle is the same as your head circumference. You sew the two ends together and then run a drawstring along one of the wide ends! Obviously you get a lot of "bunching" at the top of the beanie this way because your drawstring is pulling in a huge amount of knitting, but it shows you the extreme of what I'm talking about I guess!

The other extreme would be decreasing by k2tog etc until you only have a single stitch... so I'd aim for something in the middle of those two extremes, using more drawstringing than you seem to be :)

I really hope this makes sense!

Hugs,
r
PS
this discussion feels much more rude than it actually is!!

[afuna]

Oooh, I see what you mean now :D I will keep a closer eye on that next project.

(Well. Let us not talk about the effects of cold weather on the nipple then!

(...in knitting, absolutely no effect))