Scalpel please

It turns out that Socktopus package was really good. So good in fact that the universe decreed that there should be a bit more balance back the other way.

Last night I finished the second sleeve on the Crocus cardigan. It looked like this:


Anyone see the problem yet?

How about now...


Yes, it is the truth universally acknowledged that whenyou have a bag full of cotton 4ply scraps all in mid to dark red you will inevitable put the wrong red in your sleeve and fail to notice all the time you finish the sleeve (including several re-dos) and finish the bottom of the cardigan and finish most of the second sleeve.

Now I like knitting this cardigan but not perhaps enough to want to reknit that particular bit again (as I said, many redos to decide on the cuff) so you know what's coming (please sit down if you are of a nervous disposition - this involves both scissors and kitchener)

Step 1: this is how the beautifully knitted but incorrectly coloured sleeve looked.

Step 2: at the colour change (the row of moss stitch) I snipped a maroon thread and unravelled back.

Then as even I realise that it is not clever to attempt terribly technical things after midnight I popped both ends onto DPNs and headed for the wooden hills to an easterly county.

This morning, Step 3, it looked like this:


Slightly drafty around the elbow for the small child wearing it and possibly painful if you got your DNS muddled. So I reknit the dark red stripe and the colour change into the blue.

Step 4: I kitchenered all the way around the elbow (on a decrease row as well - I need my head seeing to!)

Step 5: Back where we started!

And now it all matches.

I think the neckband is going to be red rib (possibly going into orange if I run out of red) and the current choices for the button bands are either intarsia rib (following each colour out into the rib) with a button hole in each segment and a different coloured button for each, or possibly corrugated ribbing (maybe in the two blue colours). In the end it will probably come down to how much yarn is left over but I do like the idea of contrasting buttons - only time will tell.