Sedna-sedna-bo-bedna

(apologies to those who now have the Name Game stuck in their head)

I started my cotton cardigan with the cables and bobbles a few days ago. It's called "Sedna" and is in issue 8 of Yarn Forward magazine. I was trucking along nicely until it came to the establishing of the cable pattern when I noticed I was short a few stitches at the end. Not really worrying, I increased the few (around 3) and kept going. I ended up a few stitches too many at the end of the next row.

Uh oh.

I also noticed that the cables were a few stitches closer to the sleeve on one side then the other. This made things look a little funny because when you looked at the back of the sweater where the sleeves are, one side's cable will be nearly hidden by the armpit but the other side's cable will have plenty of room. Let's not even mention the front where one cable looked a little more crammed/scrunched than the other.

Double oops.

If anyone has done cables and/or sweaters there is an idea that sides should mirror. There is also an idea that you can't just adjust stitch numbers willy-nilly because usually those numbers are there for a reason, like something that will need those 13 stitches to fit into 7 rows down the line, or up the chart, as the case may be. This is my first cable chart project, and first serious cable project ("c5p2b", for instance), and I am praising the glory of ravelry.com for having their pattern definition information and allowing me to be a member. But even ravelry.com can not chuck me over the head and offer the suggestion that instead of barging into things, I might have planned and checked to make sure my numbers were right and marked the stitches to check for symmetry before doing it in order to not have to frog anything. Frogging cables are not fun.

I did frog it. I backtracked and checked my numbers, finding a mistake in the pattern for how many stitches my size (and all larger sizes, by the way) should have when you place the sleeve stitches on the holders. I moved on after voicing my wrath to the gods (I've taken to singing spirituals instead of cussing; it really amuses Hubby, especially when he came outside to find me cleaning chewed up bubble gum off my car floor mats and peddles after I STEPPED IN SOME FOR THE SECOND TIME IN 24 HOURS with Goo Gone, singing "Praise Jesus!") and marked the divisions where there is 2 pfb, p8, 4 pfb, p13, etc. and found that this time I only needed one extra stitch at one side and to move things over 1 stitch around one armhole.

Note to self (and any other curious persons): Use stitch markers (DON'T JUST KNIT IT) and read ahead when establishing any detailed important pattern. Keep the 2 year old out of the room when doing this or someone/thing might get hurt. Saves frogging and brain cells. And, by the way, you might want to leave the stitch markers in to save time later in the cable pattern.