Reversals of fortune

Celtic cable sweater for baby MacDonald

I noticed this morning in the car that one of the cable patterns looked a little weird - 'skewiff', as the saying goes in my family. And I'm not just talking about one of the cable sections. I mean that every single instance (and there are eight of them) of this cable pattern was doing the same weird thing at the same point. I investigated more closely, and sure enough, I'd messed up about eight rows back. On all eight occurrences of the cable. (Now that takes talent, I tell ya.) So I started ripping back just those sections and fixing them. It didn't take long before I realised that this approach was a colossal waste of time and energy. Manually fixing six stitches over about eight rows, eight times, over a pattern which includes cable crosses and bobbles? Not my cup of tea. So I ripped the whole sweater back to the point of error (*sob* - there goes over an inch of work) and am redoing it. The worst part? This sweater has slipped into the Black Hole of knitting. You know, that phenomenon where you knit and knit and knit and knit and knit, and then remeasure, and you've gained like a centimetre of length? Yeah. That.

(But wait...it gets even better...)

Striped socks for DH

With great relief, I got on the train this morning, cast aside the celtic cable sweater fiasco and picked up the sock, which at that point almost had its heel completely turned. And what did I discover? That the pattern has an error, and, consequently, my heel shaping was shifted over by one stitch. I had to tink all the way back (which by that point was such a job that I didn't finish tinking until partway through my lunch break) and redo the turning. (Incidentally, for those interested in using this pattern - heaven only knows why you would be, but who am I to tell you what to knit - the error is on round three of the heel turning: It tells you to "Sl1, K 14/20/24, SRW, turn." That "Sl1" should not be there. The instructions for the round should actually be "K 14/20/24, SRW, turn.") Finally, by the end of lunch I'd finished the heel and had started on the leg. Triumph.

Needless to say, a sucky day for knitting indeed. All in all, I've actually gone backwards in my progress. Very disheartening. I don't even have the mental energy to respond to Susan's comments from yesterday. Maybe tomorrow if I'm feeling better. Stay tuned.

Ugh.