Drop Everything

My whole life I have been struggling with the idea of being good enough.  I'm sure all of you have at least one thing you believe about your self that is only true because you believe it to be so.  Mine is my worth as a person.

I have belittled my achievements by downplaying their importance.  I have put myself last when there was no reason.  I have let fear cripple me into trying new things.  I have called myself stupid over and over until I really did believe it.

The relationship with the self is as important as any other.  It takes time and patience.  You have to do the work and be kind and supportive.

It is not easy.  All those negative things that I said or did throughout the years impacted me down to my core and it took months of healing and being kind and supportive of myself before I felt empowered...truly empowered to just be...me.

Over the last six months or so I have truly been changing everything about myself.  I have been kinder to my body.  I have explored things that bring joy to my soul.  I have opened up and really listened to what all those hurtful words have created within me.  I have created a new life entirely one day at a time.

I still have a long way to go, but at least now I can see that I have worth.  The problem is that it is like faith.  You either have it or you don't.  Worth is an invisible measure that we place on ourselves and it is almost as elusive as perfection.

It seems silly to me now that I have been searching for something outside myself that can only exist within.  And the one person that I always wanted to see my worth, actually always found me worthy, which to me, is sadly ironic.

I spent my whole life seeking the approval of one who already approved of me but I could never see that because I spent so much time in judgement of myself I thought that was how others judged me as well.

If I have learned anything from all this soul searching it is being kind, believing in and supporting myself is the most important thing I can do each day.

“You alone are enough.  

You have nothing to prove to anybody.”

-Maya Angelou

In life, things happen to your knitting all the time.  You are faithfully ticking off rows in a repeat and then your cell informs with a little chime that you have a text.  You stop for a moment to glance at your phone and during that split second of intention a stitch slips off your needle. 

You may see it, you may not.  You might keep knitting through the WS row and not realize that the stitch dropped until quite a bit later.

I know that this has happened to me many times when I get in the zen of a pattern and think that I don't need to count stitches anymore.  One distraction later and I have a dropped stitch somehow.

What you do next is what is most important.  Don't panic.

I know watching hours of knitting unraveling can be truly scary.  Things happen, this will be true throughout your knitting career so knowing what to do when it does makes you stronger and empowers you to take control.

I say again, please do not panic.  Take a breath.  You will find breathing is integral to knitting.  Your emotions show in your tension.  So breathe.

Do, not, I repeat do not, pull on both needles, this will only make the runner longer.  I can’t tell you how many times as a teacher people show me their dropped stitches and pull on both needles and we both watch in horror as it drops down another five rows.

Put your knitting down on a flat safe surface away from children playing, cats prowling or any other creatures or situations that might add to that stitch dropping further.

Calmly, grab a locking stitch marker and catch your stitch.

If you don’t have a locking stitch marker you can use a crochet hook, cable needle, dpn, a piece of waste yarn or anything that you have on you.  I’ve used paper clips in a pinch and they work rather nicely.

Take another breath.  Relax.  The stitch is caught.  It will not unravel further.  Now you can take a moment to figure out the best way to fix it.

I use a crochet hook to fix stitches.  I always have one with me.  You don't need to know how to crochet to use a hook.

Learning to read your knitting is an invaluable tool that I use every day.  Take a moment to look at your dropped stitch.  There are a bunch of horizontal yarn strands across which are many times called a ladder.  These ladders are created by your stitch leaving its place and falling down leaving the strands that, thankfully, are still holding your knitting together.

You are going to ladder your stitches back up those horizontal strands in reverse order.

If you have a lot of strands you can bundle them up with a locking stitch marker and leave only the one you are working with.  

On both sides of the ladder are live stitches.  

Look to the right of the ladder to find the lowest horizontal strand and that is the one you will begin with.

Stockinette fabric is knit on one side and purled on the other.  Make sure you are on the knit side, the side with the little vees, and if you have to, pull your locking stitch marker and the stitch it is securing through to the knit side before you begin.  

Make sure your dropped stitch is situated in front of the ladders.

Insert your hook through the dropped stitch from the front towards the back (making sure that the stitch is not twisted) and then pick up the bottommost strand in the ladder going under it from the front to the back and then catching it on the hook.  

Then, pull the ladder strand through the stitch on your hook to form a new knit stitch.  Repeat with all the ladder strands until you can place the rescued stitch back on the needle.

Ladder your dropped stitch back up to the current row you are working on.

Give your newly rescued stitch a gentle tug to make sure it has been absorbed back into your fabric.

See wasn’t that fun?  Don’t you feel empowered?  Give yourself a reward for doing great!  

Note:  If this is a new drop then you will have no trouble in laddering it back up using the strands of yarn between the stitches.  If it was dropped a while ago, you will need to borrow a little room to ladder it back up; thus making this section a little tighter.  Give the fabric a little tug or block it to help the stitches even out.

This week we looked at fixing dropped stitches in stockinette, next week we will be looking at fixing stitches in garter.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any questions regarding this or any of my other tutorials, please feel free to leave a question in the comments.

Happy crafting!

Ruinwen

😀