Apparently, I possess a magical torso that changes length at will.
I realized this after I finished blocking the Twisted Tea Shirt by The Little Wolf Knits. You see, it appeared to fit nicely when it was freshly casted-off, and it is supposed to be a cropped fit that falls at my natural waist; however, it wasn’t until after I blocked this bad boy that I noticed it was actually entirely too short — if I raised my arms even slightly, everyone’s eyeballs got a generous serving of underboob.
Thankfully, I learned this before I wore it to dinner with my family the next day.
I was disappointed and frustrated. The design was so cute and practical, I really wanted to wear it out in the world. But how am I supposed to rip back the stitches to fix it without losing control and unraveling the whole thing?
Lifelines, that’s how.
A lifeline is a carefully-placed piece of scrap yarn that acts as an anchor to keep a row of live stitches on your needle for situations like this where you need to undo your work up to a certain point. It saves you from having to start over completely.
I inserted my lifeline a few rows above the bottom cuff, so I could continue the main body section to a length that’s a bit more family-friendly.
I’m overjoyed to say that it worked!
The yarns I used came from a kit that The Little Wolf Knits made exclusively for her debut pattern: Acai (a beautiful brownish burgundy), and Love That Journey For Me (a beautiful speckled yarn with hints of pink, grey, and purple — which is also inspired by the wonderful character Alexis Rose from Schitt’s Creek). Briana showed me her prototype of the Twisted Tea Shirt (then called the Twisted Tee) when I interviewed her for my blog, and I just had to have it.
It’s always exciting when a project allows me to try new things, even things I wasn’t initially setting out to learn.
Hahahah amazing I would never have guessed at all that this was a repair and replace twisted tea unless you had shown the original. You are getting very very good at your craft! Great look and colours!