salvage operation...

I'm working on a pullover version of the Church Cardi...(heavy sigh!) I took the sleeve of the cardi (plain stockinette with a lace hem) and measured it against the front panel, which is fully patterned, to see where I needed to start the patterning on this sleeve so it would match up at the underarm. Decided that I should begin with 2 repeats of the 'cross and triangle' and went ahead and knit the sleeve. When I got it off the machine, it looked suspiciously short...drat! What do I do now? I really hate too-short sleeves. I briefly consider ploughing ahead, telling myself that I probably won't wear this anyway - it's a pullover and I just don't wear pullovers. On the other hand, I could just always push them up and nobody would know. BTW, this yarn is beautiful (Cascade Ultra Pima) and the combined stitch patterns, I think, are really stunning.

I figure, oh well, what's another day in my life to knit another sleeve? It's not like this is the first time I've had to make an extra sleeve (or two or three! LOL!) I go ahead and make the second sleeve with 3 repeats at the bottom - it's perfection! Then I thought, huh! maybe I can salvage this! got nothing to lose in trying. I'm going to separate it just above the last 'cross and triangle' repeat - there are 2 rows of reverse stockinette separating each of my patterns. If I can pull the right thread and open up the piece I can add another repeat to the bottom portion and then graft it back together, duplicating the row of reverse stockinette that I had to destroy to get it apart! sounds easy when you say it fast!

I steamed the sleeve to set the stitches, took a deep breath, grabbed  the scissors and snipped the yarn in the middle of the bottom row of reverse stockinette. Now, pick at each side to get a big enough piece to get a grip on, and pull on it to draw it across to the edge, snip the excess from the centre and then carefully pick out to the end of the row, ending up with almost two inches at each side which will be enough to darn in. Take the top portion and rehang it, right side facing and I have the one purl row hanging on the needles! Waste yarn it and then hang the bottom section, wrong side facing me. Good so far! Go ahead and knit the missing 14 rows, measure out a 3X the width tail to be used (maybe for the grafting row if it happens to be on the correct side of the work!) and waste yarn this piece. Steam them both, grab my close-up glasses, a darning needle and set to work. OMG! It's working! I'm so happy I could just knit! Less than 45 minutes!