The End Justifies the Means

I just got home and have been thinking about finishing Ms Marigold all day. I had to put her down on Christmas because I ran out of yarn, but did have enough to pick up the stitches for the border and knit a couple of rows. I got my extra ball of Knit Picks a week ago and swore not to touch it until I was done with my scarf and today is that day.

So I hate picking up stitches for a border - I dreaded it, I suck at it and now I know why. Since I stopped almost 2 weeks ago I have had this little buzz in my ear telling me that I didn't pick up enough stitches and the result would be a crunched neckline. When I bought my Malabrigo at Downtown Yarns the day before I flew home for the holidays I brought Ms. Marigold in and asked the lovely women working there what to do. I know how to pick up stitches (er, kind of) but how many, or how frequently do I do it? She told me what I didn't want to hear, something to the effect of "You just try and see how it goes. I usually pick up border, knit it, and pull it out a few times before it's right". The lesson is one similar to the gauge issue - not wanting to do one, skipping it and finding out your sweater is 2 sizes too small/big.

Not enough picked up stitches (go ahead, click to enlarge it, see for yourself)

Look (above) at how close I am!

The amount of discipline and restraint that I will be pulling off this evening is massive. I WILL be ripping this out and starting over. I am going to hate it and just to make it worse, I will be watching the National Championship game - and watching the team I hate, Ohio State, play Florida, the team that should not be playing. Michigan should be playing.

Thank goodness Hart's Mom got me the Vogue Knitting book- it has a great chapter on picking up a border and I need all the visual aids possible.

This post is dedicated to myself - I am documenting this restraint so that I look back and remember my strength. I really should have pulled out the stitches before I posted shouldn't I have?

ps: should you look at this picture and think that, nah, I didn't need to pull it out, I would have been fine, please bite your tongue. For real.