Last night I finished off the right front of the Phildar baby hoody and attached it to the back shoulder with a three needle cast off. Then I ripped back the left shoulder and re-knit it to try to get the cast offs matching. I did this maybe three times before getting a result I was happy with (or so I thought at the time). I finished the night with both shoulders attached to the back. I sat back and surveyed my work and I decided that I better rip both sides out and start again.

Why? Well the left front neckline cast off was now matching the right front but after repeatedly ripping back to the row where I was picking up the short row wraps I had mucked the wraps up and it just wasn’t neat. As for the right side the front was fine but as I inspected my shoulder seams I found a problem with the right back neckline so that had to go too. After shaping the left back shoulder I had rejoined the yarn on the right and exactly reproduced what I had done on the left, all well and good - except that I should have been purling not knitting so I had an extra wide ditch between the garter stitch bumps where I joined the new yarn (sorry forgot to take a photo).

Tonight I sat down ripped both sides out and fixed their respective issues. As an added bonus I was able to follow Alison’s excellent advice to bind off the left neckline purlwise for a better match with the right side. This was a much simpler and neater approach that the one I had concocted on my own.

After all that fiddling round with the last few rows of both shoulders here it is at last, ready and waiting for a seaming party tomorrow night.

I can’t wait to get this over with and get on with the Booga bag!