Ribbed Shrug Rant

Okay, so I knit in public on the train everyday and I asked a passerby to take a photo of me with my phone?

What? You've never done anything weird?!

Well, I felt like a I'd reached a milestone point - I thought that this was the last train journey I'd make with this UFO in tow.

It was a UFO busting moment - I was about to cast off. So proud. It was exciting!

It was certainly (in my mind, at that time) the last time I planned to touch circular needles for a VERY LONG TIME.

HOW I HATE THEM.

Frustrating, wrist hurting, yarn dropping, all fingers and thumbs making, horrid no tension stitches or the reverse, too tight tension stitches, nasty, awful, clumsy, yuck, awful. Off, off off!

It's one of the reasons why this shrug has sat unfinished since October - I was dreading the sewing up and the circular needle part.

So delighted - I finished, cast off with massive relief and the next morning, I jumped out of the shower, got dressed and checked myself out in my mirror.

Bah humbug, I did not like what I saw at all.


It does not look good on me and lives up to the 'puffy' comments made by others who have made the same project. The problems are as follows:

• rib is knitted to correct length but happens to be too tall to sit upright around my neck without being deeply irritating, yet is too mean to work as a collar when turned over.
  
  Solution: I have more yarn - undo cast off and continue knitting to see if this gives a more generous collar and perhaps helps to balance the overall look of the shrug at the back?
  [Yes, if you listen, you can hear me wailing. It means that I need to pick up those blooming circulars again]
  
  
• my cast off tension, and possibly the entire rib, is too tight, causing the rib to pull in overly around my body and causing the sleeve section to puff out, resembling a 1980s repro 'bomber' jacket.
  
  Solution: undo cast off and try casting off more loosely. If that doesn't work, undo cast off again plus the ribbing, go up a needle size and work the ribbing again.
  [Yes, if you listen, you can hear me wailing louder and gnashing my teeth too. That folks, is 4 round commutes worth of ribbing, yup - over 4 hours work with circulars.]
  
  
• while I picked up every stitch I could find around the opening of the shrug (correct size aperture), I could not find 162 stitches to pick up. I ended up about 20 stitches short. After 2-3 hours of trying, I decided to assume that this was because I had substituted yarn (garment is knitted to gauge). So I carried on, hoping that it would work itself out. Has this contributed to the rib pulling in problem? I suspect so.
  
  Solution: unpick rib and try picking up all stitches again. See if I can find (or invent), the missing 20 stitches. At the same time, try to decide whether I should up the needle size and then knit the whole rib again.
  [Yes, if you listen, you can hear me wailing, gnashing my teeth and banging my forehead against the wall in despair in contemplation of having to redo about 7 hours or so of slow, clumsy work...on circulars.]

You know, I could simply sew in the ends and push this this eagerly anticipated knit angrily to the back of my cupboard? Bother, I don't want to do that.

I was just so certain that this would be the first knit that I made for myself, that I loved to death and wore to bits. So, I present snaps of the saggy back, bomber jacker version of Erika Knight's Glamour Knits Ribbed Shrug:

Good grief.

By the way, the cordinating coloured towel is an accident.

Although strangely, it sort of goes with the overall shrug styling mess.

About that back view, I can say nothing. Nothing at all.

I might, just simply emit a small sigh.

*sigh*

Okay Gabrielle, look on the bright side, the front view of you in this shrug makes your chest look absolutely huge.

Huge.

Oh what? You wanted this as a simple, cosy shrug to wear in cold meeting rooms ot the office?

So the big chest look was not really what you were after?

Tsk.

Shame.

A pity.