Be An Honest Knitter

Pattern:  Rewinding Shawl, by Helen Stewart

Yarn:  Cascade Heritage Paints, Woodland color way

Needles:  size 7

If my mental abilities are to be determined by the number of knitting mistakes I make, I might be in trouble. I started this pattern (Rewilding by Helen Stewart) a few weeks ago. Picked out some yarn I'd held on to for way too long. (It had tried to be another of Helen's patterns a couple of years ago, but that didn't work out.) It was a simple pattern that I thought I'd whip up in a hurry.

Then the sinus/respiratory/allergy mess started. At least I'm blaming all the mistakes I made in a very simple pattern on that. The illness and the meds.

It was only "knit...knit...knit...increase" at the end of the row. Except on every 4th row, you didn't increase. But more than once I forgot to knit a plain row. Understand that it's the kind of pattern where I could have "adjusted" and kept going. I was in no hurry to finish this since the colors scream autumn. So I chose to undo and redo. Because I'm like that.

Waiting on the tassels, then this pattern will be complete..

There are two schools of thought on knitting mistakes. 

1. "Don't worry. Keep going. No one will notice when you are wearing it." And that's totally valid. Just don't point out your mistakes to everyone who looks at it.
2. "This is going to bother me forever, even if no one else sees it." And that's okay, too. If you are a #2 knitter, just go with it and fix it. 

But I am #3 knitter. I know WHICH mistakes will bug the bejeezus out of me. So I will fix those. But there are other mistakes I can ignore or adjust and keep going.

Be honest about which kind of knitter you are. Because if you are in the #2 school, the faster you stop and pull out the knitting and reknit, the quicker you will get to the end. I have spent way to much time trying to talk myself into "I don't think that will bother me. It will be okay" when I knew deep down that I would never ever be happy with it. 

This entire thought process started when I did spy a missing "hole" (more accurately a NO hole) in the lace pattern. That's a mistake I couldn't live with. I thought I could do a quick fix. I'm a really good knit doctor. And if I had seen my mistake sooner, I could have done a little correction. But by the time I noticed that blasted "hole", there was no easy fix. Believe me, I tried. I thought it would take too long to rip back. And goodness...the time I lost while I was trying to save time!

In the end, I pulled out inches and inches, carefully winding up the kinky yarn as I went. I pulled out stitches until I could find a good place to start the pattern again. And soon I was back on track. The lace pattern is perfect now. I am so glad I bit the bullet and pulled all of that out. I just wish I had done so sooner.