Eek! A Steek!!

OK, now breathe normally. Surely you've all seen enough terrifying pictures of demonic scissors slicing through innocent knitting to get the general idea (scroll down for both). If those pics freaked you out, then take EZ's sage advice:

"Cut ... then lie down in a darkened room for fifteen minutes to recover."

I'm sure I've also read her recommend (somewhere) a glass of wine after as well, or maybe that's just my own wishful thinking.

Anyway, this is a pic of the corrugated ribbing I started off with. It went well (thanks for asking). Then, I wanted to finish off the armholes and front bands in a similar manner. It didn't take long to work out that it was just too much ribbing - too many rows deep, I mean. This pic gives the best colours, btw.

So I worked out how to reduce the number of rows without disrupting the colour pattern, or making it look like I was just working this out on the fly (because I am).

Happy-happy-knitting-knitting ... you know what comes next, right?
Meet the Flare. You know, bell-bottom armhole ribbing. It's all the rage. Honestly.

Nup. Goose didn't fall for it, either.

Ripped it back. Decreased 10% stitches in first row and changed from 3.25mm to 2.75mm needles. Knit it again.

Ripped it again. Kept the original decreases, changed down to 2.25mm needles, and additionally decreased 25% on the next-to-last row. Surely I'd gone too far? Maybe a nice plain garter stitch edge would do instead? Maybe plain ribbing wouldn't look too much as if I'd just bailed on the whole consistency idea?

NAILED IT!!!

Trust me , it now works. You'll just have to wait for pics, as it's all scrunched up on the needles for the front bands. I think I've decreased (or not) in the right places for it to ease around the point at the base of the V-neck, and hug up close (but not too much) at the shoulder and neck.

I thank Lana, Amelia and Jane , who helped me work out the fastening issue at the Wool Baa yesterday, as buttons, Fair Isle rib (think strands on the wrong side) and six year old fingers just don't hang well together for me.

I'll finish this sucker yet, then it's on to my Mermaid jacket ... scroll down for the Cyclamen colourway. Maybe if my Tigers finsh in the finals this year, I'll do it again in the Curry colourway. Yeah, I can dream big dreams ...