Knitting Olympics: Swearing Reaches New Heights!

I've been getting very good at creating missed yarn-overs these days. In lace, I've been told, you can hardly tell the difference after it's blocked.

I've been getting very good at dropping back the couple of stitches necessary to K2Tog where I've missed doing so. In lace, I've been told, you can hardly tell the difference after it's blocked.

But when I discovered that the extra yarn-over occurred Four Rows Ago, several new turns of phrase were invented which sent the dog and the neighbors into hiding. (Well, actually, the dog was several states away, so I think he was spared. I have to imagine that he would have gone into hiding based on the reactions of the neighbors and the ground squirrels.)

I really didn't want to lose four rows of progress! At the rate I've been knitting, that's half a day to make up again!

So I decided to drop and re-knit just the section that was damaged. I figured that if it didn't work, I'd be dropping all the rows anyway... why not give it a try?

My mind is now a pretzel.



It took some creative visualization to get me through the process, but I was, surprisingly, able to drop back the problem area and re-knit it properly. The extra yarn was easily enough distributed through several neighboring stitches, and I'm swaddling myself in the firm belief that after it's blocked no one will ever be able to tell where it happened.

Soon enough I got the chance to do it all again. This time the mistake was a bigger one, with more rows between it and my needles:



This time I used a little plastic stitch marker as a tiny little lifeline so that the live stitches would not run too far.

The leaf-lace, it turns out, is a very forgiving lace to drop back. The central stem of each leaf motif makes a very stable edge to work from and gives a reference point for each row that's being repaired.

Post repair:



Even with the time-sink of the repairs, I was able to advance another 10 rows.

On Sunday I encountered an even bigger problem. This time when I dropped back the necessary stitches, look what happened!



How does a thread that is supposed to be travelling in a straight (albeit wavy) line across the knitting braid itself around two other rows??!

(Please don't answer that. My mind is already a pretzel.)

It turns out that fixing the problem required first dropping back even further:



Not the short section of lifeline (the white thread) woven in below the problem, just in case something drops and runs more than I'm ready for.

This time, each thread follows a clear and independent arc from one side to the other. No more braiding! .. in order to accomplish this, I had to drop the most recent K2Tog on the damaged side of the most recently worked motif's center line so that the threads would match up properly with the unworked motif on the far side of the damage.

Don't work too hard to comprehend that. My brain is a pretzel.

I'm trying to not be too picture-heavy, but I am going to indulge myself and throw in this one just to show the repair in progress! (because I'm proud of myself, after all...)



See! Instead of 8 arcing strands above the live stitches, there are now only 3! It really does work!! Like magic!

Finally repaired and ready to work forward again:



Days' Progress:

Friday, Feb 17: 8 rows.
(Airline aisles are not forgiving of persons who are walking with a cane.)
Saturday, Feb 18: 10 rows + 2 significant repairs.
Sunday, Feb 19: 8 rows + 1 Major repair.
Monday, Feb 20: 12 rows. Finished main pattern, started edging pattern.