Around here our wonderful customers are always astonishing us. But in recent days we have a new contender for “Smartest Customer 2017”. Many of you have inquired about having a “life line” opening made to our needles. We have made the decision not to do that because of concerns of making rough places on the needle stalk.
But then we heard from Lorri Arnold. She sent a picture that just knocked our socks off. Every person who saw her solution had the same response: “how could it be that no one ever thought of this before?” So easy, so wonderful, so smart.
She put a spare cable though the work to use as a lifeline, then put stitch stoppers on the ends. If the lifeline is needed not only is it there but just screw the needle stalks in and get back to work – no picking up stitches like usual life lines.
That sweater back shows her great idea but also shows a repair to a sweater that shows no matter how experienced you are you can end up with a mess.
I wanted to finish this sweater for the first baby of a great co-worker. You know the wonderful feeling: all pieces done and ready to put together. I will say I am a great assembler – my seams are strong, with many tiny stitches.
What I am, is an idiot too. Once all the pieces were together and I was ready to bring to work, I was horrified to notice that I had sewn one of the sleeves in inside out. I tried to rationalize that the inside and outside were close together in look, but really just an idiot.
So now my fabulous joining was turned into a massive catastrophe. I knew it would be horrible to try and unsew all those seams. Instead I did something horrifying: I cut out the back. I knew I could pick out the pieces of each row easier than trying to undo them.
The silver lining was that the new back could be used to show the lifeline idea. But face it, the silver was tarnished by the whole mess.
The sweater is finally all done with the new back in place and I am trying to move on.