It’s a good thing I love this pattern.

meri 2012.08.06

*sigh*

As you all know by now, I’m making two of the Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl. One (SSMS #2) is in a state very commonly known around this house: all finished except the finishing. This means that all the actual knitting is done, and all that’s left is the blocking and the weaving in of loose ends. I keep swearing I’m going to start blocking an item a day, and make an interesting week of it, but yet, mostly-finished items continue to languish in their little baggies, waiting to be finished and sent on to their new homes. Life as a knitted object is hard.

Last night, thanks to an off-by-one error and not trusting my instincts that something was wrong, I ended up making a series of unfortunate mistakes in SSMS #3. Rather than following my initial urge (throw it away and go find a big drink), I carefully stowed the offending shawl back in its project bag, and set it aside until more awake – and calmer – minds were available.

After my morning meds and daily cup of coffee, I sat down with the shawl to see if the harm was reparable.

The construction of the garment is such that there are 20-something columns (I expanded the pattern for length), each bisected by a diamond surrounded by open lacy areas. In an hour, I had managed to repair… two columns. The enormous amount of time is largely due to my being unsure as to how the hell the stitches got into the state they were in, much less how to return them to the state they were supposed to be in. Someone much more patient and skilled than I – including many people reading this – might have been able to set things right. However, I know my limits. Faced with this knowledge, and another 20-something columns to fix, and a sinking feeling that it still wouldn’t look right even if I did somehow manage to get the right number of stitches back on the needles… I gave up. I ripped out the whole thing, winding my yarn as I went. This was particularly painful, as I was close to 90% complete with the project.

An aside: In a previous post (also about me screwing up this very shawl), I was talking about tinking, or the skill of unknitting. A friend mentioned that she calls this ‘frogging’, and at the time, I agreed with her. However, I think I am changing my mind. Tinking, to me, is a very needle-intensive sort of task. You are actually unknitting your stitches, generally using the same needles you used to create them. Frogging, in my world, doesn’t tend to involve needles. In fact, it’s generally best if you can manage to completely remove your needle from the offending fabric and then rip your stitches out, showing them who’s boss. The stitches do not, sadly, cry out in agony, but they should.

So, I have cast on this shawl for one final try. (Ok, it’s not like I’m going to give up if I manage to foul everything up again, but if I say that, maybe the knitting gods will sense my despair and give me a break and protect me from my own stupidity.) Wish me luck.