Warning: The following post has some photos of graphic violence against knitting. Knitters with a weak constitution may want to close their browsers now. But fear not there is a happy ending.
The Knitter's Frolic was my first big show since buying Passionknit, and my plan was for this year to be a little different. Jennifer has always been famous for her 12th hour additions to the kits and samples we bring to the show. The best example is The Missoni Cowl which was still damp from blocking when I saw it for the first time at the Kitchener Waterloo Knitter's Fair.
This year was going to be different, the last addition I was making to our kit line up was The Bradway Shawl by Shannon Cook in some new colours of Malabrigo Rios. One of our regular customers came in wearing it in four colours, and I needed to make one instantly! The shawl was a great knit, I loved working with the colours, and the pattern is simple without being boring. I knit it up quick, and got it done with plenty of time before the show. I set it out to block at home, and went to bed.
The following morning I was running around with my daughter, and she had wondered into my room and started crying when I would not let her eat the loose change that was on my dresser. As I was taking her away from my dresser, my eyes fell on my blocking shawl and my heart stopped. This is what I saw:
For anyone who does not know my family life, I live with my husband, daughter and two cats. I have blocked many items in my home without issue of any kind. The worst thing that had happened to a finished piece of knitting is an excess of cat hair from being used as a bed. This was a first, and how helpful for them to choose the last item that I had finally finished with time to spare before a big show, my first big show as owner, to EAT MY $#@%ING KNITTING!?!? WTF, cats?
Fortunately my husband was home, so no harm came to the cats. He rushed in, took our daughter off my hands so that I could properly melt down as the situation warranted. And then came the process of fixing. I started with the possibility of frogging most of the shawl up to the un-eated portion, but that was way too devastating to consider. Clearly the garter section in the aqua (Rios in colour 83 Water Green) would need to be reknit. So I cut the stitches at the first row of aqua, and put them on the needle and began to work the garter stitch portion again. In the remaining portion of the shawl I trimmed out the chewed area, and placed a clean row of stitched on a separate needle. When I had reknit the garter stitch section, I used the Kitchener stitch to join the two pieces of the shawl. That was definitively the longest portion of Kitchener stitch I have ever done, including joining the Missoni Cowl. That left only the smaller chunk out of the teal section (Malabrigo Rios colour 412 Teal Feather). I considered knitting that section again as well, but the mere thought of an even longer stretch of grafting made me tired. So I tried as bit of surgery that was part darning, part grafting, and part improvisation. Here is the result:
It wasn't perfect, but I could live with it. And by live with it I mean tuck it under a fold and hope nobody notices. (Always helps to post close up photos on the Internet, that's how you ensure nobody sees it, right?) Then I blocked it. I blocked it at the store, cause I'm no fool. And this time nobody ate it while I was sleeping. We brought it to the Frolic, and lots of people loved it and bought the kits and all was well.
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