Damn the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy!

There is a reason I don’t finish my yarn projects, and it is this: I get discouraged when I make mistakes. Especially mistakes that I continually repeat, or those I don’t notice until too far along to easily fix.

The additional yarn for my Boxy T Top finally arrived. Yay! ¹ So I took a break from the nautical signal flag afghan to finish knitting the sweater. And I did finish knitting it. Now to join the pieces and weave in the ends.

I recently came upon instructions for changing to a new ball of yarn when the current ball runs low. It said to change the yarn at the end of the row. Otherwise, if you change yarn in the middle of the row, you run the risk of creating a hole in your fabric Now, I’ve been knitting for a long time (off and on) and have added a new ball of yarn mid-row many times without ever creating a hole. Sure, I had to take care when weaving in the loose ends, but it wasn’t rocket science.

So, in preparation to join the two pieces of my sweater together, I began weaving in some of the ends. After I wove in the first end (and snipped the yarn), I realized I may have weaved in the wrong direction. I tried to “unweave” the end and possibly went too far, also taking out a stitch or two. Guess what! That created a big-ass hole. I’m sure an experienced/professional knitter would be able to fix the mistake and save the sweater. Alas, I am not that knitter.

Nothing to do but unravel to the mistake. Of course, the hole was about five rows from the beginning of the sweater. Well, fuck. So I just unraveled the entire piece and started over.

If only I hadn’t learned about the hazards of mid-row ball changes, I wouldn’t have made that big-ass hole. (Damn self-fulfilling prophecies!)

Initially I thought I might be able to complete the sweater by this weekend (Oct 10th), since I’d found an interesting book to listen to in case nothing on television interested me. But now I’ve discovered I didn’t follow the instructions for the beginning of the first piece I made (the back). My initial thought is to not worry about it. It’s not something anyone will likely notice. The sweater is certainly unstructured enough to work even with the mistake. (See above photo.)

The good news is that my older and wiser brain looks upon this setback in a new light, i.e., What I’ve learned:

1. change to a new ball of yarn at the end of the row
2. read the damn instructions
3. read the damn instructions again, because you (meaning “I”) have dyslexia
4. the end result doesn’t have to be perfect, and
5. most importantly, don’t get discouraged!

I’m not sure if I’ll redo the back as well as the front. In the meantime, I’ll finish the Oxford Boyfriend cardigan, make a few more nautical flag squares, and perhaps start a Christmas project or two.

¹ Because I didn’t want to spend shipping for just one ball of yarn, I also purchased yarn to make a little Santa elf amigurumi. I haven’t tried amigurumi, but I’m dying to make a little Toothless and a little Stitch. And another handbag. Because you can never have too many handbags.

• 

•