Delancey KAL Week 1

On Monday, the knit-a-long officially started for the Delancey Cardigan. If you want more info, visit Allyson's blog.

I quickly jumped right in and got to knitting.  This is my first of two triangles.  It was completed on Monday night.  In fact, I got the first done so fast I decided to wait a few days to start the second.  Once that second was complete yesterday, I realized a sad, sad fact.  My first triangle was smaller than it should be.  That tends to happen when you forget two whole rows.

That, my friends, is why you count your rows properly.  Above you see my counting method for this pattern.  I would usually use lines to count rows, but for this one I'm writing the actual row numbers down as I do them to make extra sure I get things right.
The most frustrating thing about fixing the first triangle was the fact that I had cut both colors of yarn when I finished it.  All I had was little tails left.  Not nearly what I needed to add two rows.  That's where the beautiful spit splicing comes in.

You take your tail and the start of a new ball of yarn.  Trim half the plies off the last couple of inches of each end, add spit... I know, gross!  I actually use water.  I put a few drops in my hand, then position the overlapping ends of yarn on my wet palm.  Next you rub your hands together over the overlapping yarn.  Wetness and friction cause natural animal fibers to felt together like above.  Now you don't have to weave in extra ends.  Sadly it doesn't work well with superwash wool which is one of the main reasons I don't use superwash.

As you can see from above, I finally got all my errors fixed and joined my two triangles together.  That completes this week's goals.  Stay tuned to see what happens next week.