I’ve knit a lot of things in the round. Socks. Circular shawls. An afghan. Sleeves. Bags. Lots of things. And there’s one thing that’s common between all those things.
“Join into round, being careful not to twist.”
Now, maybe I’ve just been lucky, or maybe if a twist somehow did get by me I caught it in the first row, but I’ve been careful, and I’ve joined into the round without twisting lots of times. I don’t recall ever having joined into the round and having a twist.
Until this week.
I would have merrily kept knitting for at least a few more rows before realizing there was a problem, too, if I hadn’t had the tunic out at Tuesday night and a friend was spreading it out to see the colours. Luckily, this is Noro. Even though it’s mostly cotton, you can rip this stuff back and the loops are just waiting there for you to pick them up again without any fuss or bother. I ripped back to the first row after joining and in the 178 stitches, there was only one that slipped through and I had to pick it back up on the first round.
A twist is one of those things that you can’t fudge. You simply have to bite the bullet and tear back nearly all the way. At the cast on or one row in, especially with lace-weight like this, you can fake away the twist without really affecting your fabric (http://www.knittingdaily.com/blogs/daily/archive/2010/07/19/cast-on-without-doing-the-twist.aspx). Otherwise, take that thing off the needles and just rip it back to where you can fake it.
I was lucky. It was caught fairly early, and in company that could help me and triple-check when I had it back on the needle. By the next day, I was back up to where I was before the twist was discovered, and now I’ve made some decent progress.
It had to happen sometime, I suppose, and I’m sure it will happen again, with less happy results than with Noro lace. And hey. I got to knit more with Noro. Life is good. 🙂
