Hems and stubborn Cast On edges

On the continuing saga that is my sweater...
Last night I ripped back the neck. Using good old knittinghelp.com I stuck a few dpns a few rows below the hem turn. Picking out my previous basting was fairly easy and it frogged quite nicely to the row that my dpns were sitting in. Ahh, I love when knitting works out perfectly. I then proceeded to put my turn in right away so the neck would be a bit shorter than before, and then I knit about 3/4 of an inch for the hem. Haven't basted yet, though.

Inserting my needles into a 'target' row were really easy so I decided it was time to tackle the bottom of the body... the dreaded Cast On edge. I picked up stitches two rows above the ribbing. Once everything was secure I pulled out my tiny little embroidery scissors and just began cutting off the the CO. I figured I didn't need to be careful so I probably cut into a row or two as well. In my head it all made sense; I'd find a row that was still in tact and pull the yarn and it would all unravel... but in reality this did not happen.
"That's odd", I thought to myself. So, I cut off another row... still no luck. I figured I could just wiggle all the stitches and make them drop to my destination row. This was working but, for some crazy reason only every other stitch was drop-able.
At this point I started freaking out. I was pulling, madly, at the cut up ribbing, violently dropping any stitches that were willing. It suddenly dawned on me that maybe cutting my sweater wasn't such a good idea.



^{walking in a spider web}

About half an hour later all possible unraveling was done. I was left with this crazy spider web of yarn that did not want to undo itself. And here I've been for the past year and a half thinking my scarf would fall apart into a tangle of yarn on a whim if I didn't weave in my Cast On tail well enough. Trust me, it will not fall apart.
I finally realized that I would have to spend the rest of the night undoing each stitch individually until I hit my destination row, so, I set about that horrible, horrible task.

After more than 2 hours the task was complete. There was much snipping and untangling but, I reached my previously inserted needle with no stitches lost. I counted all 200 of them twice. =)




On the left, with the wooden dpns, is the neck which ripped back oh-so-smoothly. On the right is my Boye interchangeable circular holding on to the stitches that were hell.
I plan to reknit the bottom 2 inches tonight, turn, and add an orange hem. If I'm not tired I'll baste and then tomorrow I'll weave in all the ends hiding in the body. And finally, I'll be done.

Actually, I'll have to block the sweater and then I'll be really done. Speaking of blocking, after a previous disaster with laundry detergent and Malabrigo, I decided to invest in some Soak wool wash.





I considered buying Eucalan but these looked so much more hip. Packaging definitely affects my shopping. I'm happy about the scents, they're not too strong and none of them smell excessively fake or chemical-based. They're surprisingly sophisticated. Well, maybe not the citrus flavor... hahaha, I totally get dish soap from it.

Here's to even stitches. ^_^
Knit hard!