Tuesday morning started going off plan at the moment when WFB Jr missed the school bus for the second time ever. He waited and waited until he decided that the bus wasn’t coming because of the snow and he came home. As he stepped through the door we saw the bus gingerly going past on the icy road. Missing the bus turned out to be a good thing because everyone that was on it had to walk home from wherever they were when they got the message that school had closed. Depending which bus they were on some walked a mile from the bottom of the hill, some walked two miles and some had to walk all the way home. Those who had to wait for Mrs Morris to get dressed (I was planning on starting my day with a shower) and find her car keys got not much further than the bus stop before getting the message about the closure and turning around for home. The flowers were from a grateful mum. I’m not sure whether it was for my attempt to get their child to school or for inviting them over once it was closed.

My original plans for Tuesday were to start with a leisurely shower and spend the rest of the day working on a project with a firm Thursday deadline. I didn’t plan on spending any time at all on the sweater because I wouldn’t be able to get a photo of him in it until the weekend and Thursday was the more pressing priority. Having the sweater wearer home all day for modelling was an opportunity too good to pass up. The clasps are only tacked on because I didn’t know whether I’d be taking them off and switching to the zip that he originally asked for. This is a good thing because they aren’t in the right place – they need to be set wider apart to eliminate that niggling gap in the middle. I originally thought that I would need three but when I set them out they were too cramped and two was the right number. He’s willingly worn the sweater for real, out of the house, twice now with the clasps and I think they’re staying.

If you look at the photos on the pattern it makes a stand up collar which is why it’s picked up from the right side. I have no idea why I knitted it because that’s not the collar I wanted, I wanted one that turned over and if you turn the original over then as you can see there just isn’t enough of it. The second time around I picked up from the wrong side, knitted it longer with some increases to make the front edges swing further to the front. If you put a pattern in my hand I’m dangerous, I’ll knit it even when I know it’s not at all what I want. The last thing to do was to fill in that gap at the front. I was on solid ground with that because I put that gap there and I knew from the start what I was going to do with it.

I picked up stitches from the right side whilst looping the yarn over the cable of a circular needle on the wrong side. That saved me from picking up stitches on the reverse side. I knitted the stitches I picked up on the front, then I knitted the stitches I’d caught on the cable. I went round and round making a tube that would enclose the original edge of the neck. When it was deep enough I knitted the two edges together with a three needle bind off. I’d seen this somewhere as a way of enclosing a cut edge and I thought it was a neat idea because you automatically get both sides the same depth and there’s no sewing at the end.

The result was a facing where both sides start with picked up stitches and both appear to be the right side. When the collar flips over to show the “wrong” side it looks exactly the same as the right side. I am very pleased with the result and it came out exactly as I’d imagined. It’s not often I get to say that but this time I got it right. It was a pig to knit at the start, the stitches at the back needed to be held on a cable because there wasn’t enough flexibility for me to use dpns but the end result was worth the struggle.

I’d thought I’d be merrily casting on now I’m through with the sweater but the Thursday deadline was still there so new knitting has had to wait.