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Pick up your stitches

Posted by R. Berg on June 04, 2001

In Reply to: Pick up your stitches posted by mortimer on June 04, 2001

: What does the advice (saying , phrase) "pick up your stitches" mean? I asked a friend and he said it was also in an old Donovan song and he got it an played it for me, "you got to pick up every stitch". mortimer

I haven't heard this as a phrase, but it might mean "Do it right" or "Correct your mistakes" or "Be responsible"--given the pop-song context, probably something to do with maintaining your karma. In knitting, if you fail to pass one needle properly through a loop of yarn in the row of loops you are transferring, one at a time, from the other needle, you have "dropped a stitch," and this mistake shows as a hole in the sweater (potholder, afghan, scarf, cap). Picking up a stitch can mean doing it right the first time (not dropping the stitch) or repairing a dropped stitch later (by pulling the yarn to where it should go and anchoring it with thread).

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