The Best Intentions Always Go Awry

Have you ever hung your head over the toilet after a knitting mistake(s)? Well, now I can say that I have. The pain, the agony, the heartache - but maybe I should start at the beginning.

I was working on the Icarus Sunday night. I finally finished all of the repeats for the first chart and was ready to move onto the second chart. I decided to run a lifeline - you know, just in case. I've never used a lifeline before, but thought that this would be the best time to start. I've worked on the body of this shawl almost exclusively for the last 2 weeks and didn't want to lose all of that hard work. So here's the lifeline. Go ahead. Look closely.



It doesn't take much to see that I completely absentmindedly threaded the stitch markers with the lifeline. I discovered this after I started knitting the first row. So in the middle of the first row, I decided, "well, how important is this lifeline anyway?" and just jerked it out. Now I can cook with gas.

Well, the second chart's repeats kind of stagger the first charts - meaning, they do not start and stop at the same stitch (at least, not by my calculations), so of course I get off a little bit with the stitches (I always do when I don't have stitch markers - and I can accept that). Well, on my way back across the wrong side, I keep coming across these yo's. Why are there yo's? There aren't any yo's on the chart. These must be dropped, I think to myself. So for about 4 or 5 repeats, I'm consistently dropping yos- and thinking, "wow, my stitches are going to be way off... I wonder why I put all of those yo's in there?"

Well, those yos were supposed to be there. Yes, boys and girls, I don't know what I was thinking, but everything is way off right now. I told The Boy, "I think I'm going vomit" and had to sit over the toilet for a minute or so. Now I have to figure out how to fix it. Should I just move on and try to line the pattern up the way it should? Or should I tink back the 2 rows (and 300-something stitches for each row) and try to do it correctly? I'm still thinking about it and am a little cautious to pick it up again. So I started another pair of socks and am working on the second Endpaper Mitt a little more. Ugh.

Sammy sums up my feelings perfectly: