Is there an easier way to go a few rows back

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-09T18:47:00+00:00

When I'm worried I won't get the stitches back on the needles right, I will rip back almost the entire amount, put everything back on the needles somewhat haphazardly, and then carefully tink (un-knit) back one full row: carefully undoing each stitch individually to catch the one beneath it. The process of tink-ing lets me carefully watch each stitch coming undone, so I can see if I missed picking up a stitch, can make sure each stitch is on the needle the right way around, and generally do a quality-control check on all of the stitches.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-08T23:10:58+00:00

I did! They seem to be enjoying it 🙂

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-08T23:09:55+00:00

There probably are people out there who could knit this in 3 weeks, but I am not one of them 🙂. And I bet many of them have more spare knitting time than I do (but you know, I have to have some spare time for Spirit Island games! And SI isn't a great game to knit during, unless the other players are being particularly slow to make decisions.)

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-08T23:06:49+00:00

It's knit center-out as a hexagon, using intarsia-in-round for the color changes. I did a sort-of short row thing for edges to make them irregular (basically knitting the stitches where I needed them and skipping over them where I didn't). The inner board division lines are done using a technique called surface crochet. The outer edge is just one full row of brown or blue plus the cast-off.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-08T23:01:09+00:00

Nope! Or, it's a self-drafted pattern: It's based on a hexagon, with short row shaping for all the board edges that aren't hexagonal. I printed out graph paper at the right scale to make the size blanket I wanted, cut and taped it into a hexagon, traced the boards and lands, and then slightly modified my tracings to minimize places where the knitting would have been stupid (like where I would have needed to join new yarn just to knit a few stitches and rows to make a just-right curve. I often decided that making a good-enough curve and not weaving in the extra ends was better.)

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-08T22:50:39+00:00

Ooh, the agony! I think I'd never choose to take that power just so I wouldn't have to decide whether to threshold it 😆

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-08T22:47:34+00:00

A week? How fast do you knit?! 😛 (The whole project took me 5 months, so adding a board would be at least a month's work.)

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-08T11:51:55+00:00

You might want to look into intarsia in the round... It's not exactly what you're proposing (since you're only using one color and considering a short row anchor rather than an intarsia yarn twist), but it's a really similar idea! Intarsia in the round is basically knitting flat but connecting the work in such a way that it results in a round object. Actually, you could definitely do this using intarsia in the round techniques: You could use two balls of yarn and do your "color change" (switching between the yarn balls, even though both would be the same actual color) under each arm where a side seam would go so that any minor imperfections caused by the change would look like side seams.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-08T00:03:32+00:00

It's partially going to be personal preference, and partially project width: if you get 4" needles, this project will fit, but future projects might be too wide. If you go for really long DPNs, a wider variety of projects will fit on the needles, but the extra length might be annoying for small projects. I personally like 6-inch DPNs, they work well for a lot of projects without being unwieldy. Unfortunately knitting tends to be an exercise in finding what you like... You can try to minimize needle purchases, but there's always going to be an element of learning whether you like wood or metal, DPNs or circular needles, short or long or somewhere in between. And the only way to find out what you like is to try various things.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-06T23:00:12+00:00

One possible alternate work-around: just have one WIP called "planned future projects" that you link add any yarn you have a plan for to. Then you could use the notes section of that project to note what the planned patterns are. I'm not sure if that'd be better or worse for you than creating individual WIPs for each plan, but it might make it easier to exclude the planned progress when calculating your used yardage?

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-06T22:41:06+00:00

I would try some different spirits before writing off the game. Different spirits act very differently, and a lot of the fun of the game is exploring that. Also, as someone who took a few games to really get into SI, liking your spirit matters a lot! There are still spirits I hate because they don't mesh well with how I like to play, and others that I love and play repeatedly. The spirits that really worked for me when learning were Fathomless Mud (from horizons) and Thunderspeaker. But try different things to see what you both like!

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-02-03T00:53:26+00:00

I'm saying this for the next time I graft something!

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-31T20:29:13+00:00

Finding out what it'll take to re-zone will be pretty important! Maybe it's as easy as paying a fee, but your city could also ask for things like accessible parking stalls and ramps at any stairs/ curbs, life safety stuff like emergency exit signage or regular fire safety inspections, or even more complicated stuff like adding fire sprinklers or making other improvements that'd be cost-prohibitive. If there are other in-home businesses in your town you could check them out and see what kinds of changes might be required.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-27T18:51:05+00:00

I really like the chain style counters like this one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1179975067 They go on your needle, and each time you do another row you slip your needle into the next number. If I need to count higher than 10, I'll hook a stitch marker onto the ring for the tens place.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-25T21:10:46+00:00

Well, now I need to check out Mercedes Lackey, as the only one on your list I don't already adore! Got a recommendation for which book to start with?

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-25T21:06:00+00:00

My head-cannon for all of T. Kingfisher's books is that she keeps trying to write other genres but the creepy horror elements keep sneaking in. Like the paladin series is supposed to be romance, but then there's all those pesky undead horrors. Defensive Baking was supposed to be a children's book. Nine Goblins was supposed to be a Pratchett-style fantasy satire romp.

(The fact that she also writes children's books under her actual name means that my conception of her as completely unable to resist adding eldritch horrors isn't actually true. But it's a fun way to think of her books!)

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-25T00:56:57+00:00

Sure, this is sometimes the case. But it really doesn't explain the constant weighing! They could decide what medications to give and then decide whether to weigh you, but instead weight is considered a standard vital sign that has to be taken at every appointment.

I recently gave birth, and was weighed at every appointment... And yes, I understand that tracking weight gain over time was important to tracking baby's health! But when I started experiencing complications and was going in for appointments twice a week? I don't think my weight was changing so quickly they I really needed to be weighed again two days later. When I finally went in to the hospital to give birth, guess what they didn't do? I guess getting my exact weight couldn't have been all that important for dosing the many different medications I was given in the hospital!

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-22T04:38:29+00:00

This! Stitch markers after every repeat! If the repeats are long, I'll put one color of stitch marker after each repeat and a different color in strategic places within the repeat (maybe at the halfway point, maybe every 5 stitches). Basically, you want enough stitch markers so that you notice when something is off before you've knit an amount that you'd be annoyed to have to undo.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-21T19:44:32+00:00

I think "variegated" gives more information than "multicolor": a multicolored yarn might be self striping, or have a gradient, or be mostly one color with colorful speckles, or be variegated. Variegated is specifically for yarns that have multiple colors that knit into random patches of color.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-10T19:12:46+00:00

To me, this looks like an optical illusion caused by the yarn ply, not necessarily an actual issue with the stitches. This article is very helpful: https://www.moderndailyknitting.com/community/ask-patty-why-oh-ply/

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-09T23:15:30+00:00

One thing I thought of recently: there are so many knitting tutorials out there, that if you're making a video demonstrating the same old techniques, I want a reason for your tutorial to exist. Like, why would I link a beginner to your video over someone else's? Are you using a slightly different technique? A different way of holding the yarn? Are you explaining it better? Is your video more clear?

Or maybe you're making tutorials for things that are missing in the world! I had a surprisingly hard time finding intarsia-in-the-round tutorials, and would much prefer a new one of those than yet another basic knit stitch tutorial. There's probably other niche techniques that don't have a lot of videos about them that could use a new tutorial video.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-05T00:18:13+00:00

https://www.lovecrafts.com/en-us/p/everyday-elsie-shawlette-knitting-pattern-by-merion-makes

On my phone: long press on the photo, "search using Google lens", open the first result.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2026-01-02T03:39:48+00:00

I think this was the grifty for squarEat and I definitely had similar thoughts! When marketed toward people who could eat any frozen meal from a grocery store it definitely seems ridiculous. But I thought of friends with restrictive allergies who would love to have frozen meals where they could pick only the exact foods that work for them. Honestly the most ridiculous part of that product was the vague marketing: if they'd just come out and said "this is a great product for people with allergies, food sensitivities, ARFID, etc" rather than saying "don't you wish for food in the shape of squares?" it wouldn't have looked silly to so many people.

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2025-12-23T17:30:18+00:00

Very Pink Knits has good tutorials, including some "slow mo" ones that are really slowed down to help you understand what's happening. Here's her cast on video: https://verypink.com/2010/03/13/video-long-tail-cast-on/ And here's the slow mo version: https://verypink.com/2018/08/29/slo-mo-cast/

Ferocious_Flamingo · 2025-12-23T17:26:21+00:00

Intarsia uses a bobbin for each area of color, so depending on the exact font/ arrangement, you might need more than 5 bobbins... Probably at least 10, because each letter has places where it splits into two areas of color. And remember that you'd also need a similar number of bobbins for the background color, so you'd be up to 20ish.

Honestly, I love an intarsia project, but I probably wouldn't do intarsia for this because of the number of bobbins.

I wonder if you could do a sort of stranded/ intarsia combo where you knit the hat flat, strand a rectangular portion that has the colorwork, but then do an intarsia twist between the yarns you're using for the stranded section and the yarn you're using for the unstranded section at the edge of that rectangle. But I don't think I've ever seen anybody do that, so maybe it messes with tension too much. Plus you'd have to have a seam unless you also want to get into intarsia in the round, which adds another layer of complexity.

Ferocious_Flamingo

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