Sweater Surgery Success!

The one thing I hate to do more than cook is grocery shop. So, naturally I waited until 9:00 the night before Thanksgiving to do my Thanksgiving grocery shopping.  And let me just say that I now know why I don't like to cook.  I mean why bother???  One of the things my sister is making for Thanksgiving dinner is some home made pies (probably apple and pumpkin and maybe a cherry).  One of the things I was asked to bring was a pecan pie.  So, I'm at the grocery store tonight and I meander over to the frozen pie isle (hey, it's 9:30 the night before Thanksgiving!  It's not like I'm going to make a pecan pie from scratch at this late hour now right?) and oh. my. gosh.  I could not believe all the different kinds of frozen pies!  (This ought to tell you how often I do my own grocery shopping).  So I found the obligatory heat & serve Sara Lee Southern Pecan Pie and tossed it in the cart.  Then I noticed the Sara Lee Pecan and Cream Cheese Pie and thought that sounded pretty good too, so I tossed that in the basket as well.  Oh, and look at that!  A Caramel Apple Nut Pie, a Vanilla Bean Cheesecake and a Mocha Mudslide Pie!  And you don't even have to bake them!  You guessed it -- into the cart! 

On the other hand, I will be preparing steamed fresh Brussels sprouts, a home made sweet potato case role that is to die for, gravy (for the home made noodles of course), and our other Thanksgiving tradition of jellied cranberry sauce (cut in the shape of turkeys {with a turkey cookie cutter of course}) served on a slice of orange served on a big lettuce leaf.  Don't ask me who started that tradition -- I only know my mom's done it for as long as I can remember and I do it every year now too.  They're pretty -- I'll take a pic tomorrow for you to see.

Alrighty.  On to the sweater surgery.  All in all, I think it went very well.  (Do I sound like a surgeon giving the patient's family the post-op report???)  I took pics at almost every point of the "procedure" (there I go sounding like a doctor again).

Let's start at the beginning.  Here is the sweater pre-op (tee-hee, ahem sorry).

 

To re-cap from yesterday, the sweater was about 3 inches too long so I'd decided to amputate remove the bottom couple of inches by essentially putting a life line (or in my case a long cable) a row above where I wanted the new bottom to be and then cutting the row of stitches directly below the life line.  I have never done this before and I'll admit that cutting my stitches made me very nervous.

Here is a pic of me inserting the life line. 

I think I inserted the needle into the wrong "leg" of each stitch as I ended up having to untwist each of my stitches that was on the life line when it came time to knit them. 

Here is the life line fully inserted around the entire sweater.

I then carefully cut each stitch below the life line stitches.  Can you see my hand trembling???

And here's the bottom portion completely removed from the top. 

My original plan was to change the rolled edge on the bottom of the sweater (as seen in the pics above) to a hemmed edge when I re-knit the new shorter bottom because I really liked the way Alison's Weasley looked with the hemmed bottom.  So from the row of life line stitches, I purled my turning row for the hemmed edge and then knit another 6 or 7 rows in stockinette stitch for the inside of my hem.  But a funny and unexpected thing happened.  The stockinette stitch below the purled turning row made a beautiful rolled edge (much nicer than the original one) and I sort of liked it enough to leave it and fore-go the hemmed edge. 

See?

The really ironic part of this new rolled edge is that (if you've been with me from the beginning of this sweater you might remember) when I first started this sweater (from the bottom up) I could not for the life of me get the bottom edge to stop rolling and it looked HORRIBLE.  It rolled up about 4 inches so I frogged the whole thing and started over.  Like 3 times.  Then I finally read that if I did a few rows of K1P1 ribbing, that would stop it from rolling up so much.  I did the ribbing, but it STILL rolled up right over the ribbing.  Finally about 6 inches into the sweater, I decided to see if some early blocking would help stop the unruly rolling and it did.  I wasn't thrilled with the way the K1P1 ribbing looked above the rolled edge, but I knew I had no choice.  I then used the same technique on the sleeves.  So now, this new rolled edge bottom using one row of purl stitch is a very pleasant surprise and I like it so much that I'm going to re-do the bottoms of each sleeve to match.  The sleeves were a little too short anyway, so re-knitting the bottom of the sleeves is no biggie. 

 

All in all I'm very pleased with the new bottom and with the new length.  Oh, and for some reason, the other problem I was having with the "centeredness" of the stitch markers also seems to have corrected itself when I shortened the sweater.  I've been wearing the sweater now for about 30 minutes and the markers seem to be staying centered and not shifting to the left like they were yesterday.  Weird, huh?  So.  Tomorrow evening I hope to re-knit my sleeves and if I'm very lucky I'll get to start on my initial.  Woohoo! 

The prognosis?  I think Weasley's going to make it.

Comments

[Amy]

Happy Thanksgiving! The sweater looks great. Congratulations on a good surgical outcome.

I'm bringing a store bought pie to Thanksgiving too -- apple dumpling. The bakery at my grocer is pretty good, so I hope no one cares that it isn't homemade.

[Jennifer]

I like the new length! Good choice on making that change.

[Nancy]

Awesome sweater surgery! I can imagine how nerve wracking it had to be to cut it like that.

[Amy]

I looks like the patient is going to make it! Cutting my work would have scared me to death too.

I'm glad you dad is no longer MIA. Talk about tough love!

Amy

[April]

Whoa, cutting a sweater, that's scary, but you obviously knew what you were doing, because it looks great.

That story about your dad is frightening, yikes.

[Ruth]

Congratulations on the successful surgery ... that took courage, but the results were well worth it.

So glad your dad is o.k. ... what a frightening few hours.

[Lisa]

Very impressed with your courage here. I don't think I could've done that. I have a sweater I would like to lengthen a bit and the thought of cutting it is making my stomach turn. I think I will end up having knitter surgery instead of sweater surgery. LOL! It came out great though. :) Lisa