3 stages of lace knitting grief

or, What you do when you realize you've made a BIG HONKING ERROR in your knitting.

Stage 1:  Anger
At self:  "I did NOT use the wrong chart.  No way!  I'm better than that."  [looks closely at charts]  "Crap."
[stomp around house, screaming obscenities and tearing hair.  Dogs hide in fright, husband tiptoes away to play video games]

At the designer:  "Freakin' files were confusing!  It's not my fault!  Waaaaaaaah!"

Stage 2:  Denial
"I don't really HAVE to fix it, do it?  It's not THAT bad.  It's still nice and lacey."

Stage 3:  Acceptance
"Cripes, how many times have I seen other people make errors like this and thought 'Jeezopete, how could you miss THAT???'"  The Karma fairy has just tapped me with her wand.  Hubris is a bitch, my friends.  I just DIDN'T READ the name of the file correctly.  I am officially a moron."

"And dude, you know that if you didn't fix it, EVERY TIME you looked at this shawl, you'd see that error.  Because it's big, and it's honkin'.  You gotta fix it.  Just suck it up and do it."

So I did.

Here are Janice's tips for frogging back to the big honkin' error.

I don't use lifelines.  So when I do something like this, I just pull the needle out and frog rapidly back to approximately where I need to restart. 

On this project, the section before the error had a purl back row.  If you have that option, frog to a purl row.  I wanted to pick up sts from one of the purl rows, because nothing makes you scream in frustration like trying to tink back through a bunch of sk2p or k3togs. 

At this point, you want to tink one st at a time.  If possible, put your needle INTO the st before you pull the working yarn OUT.  You're less likely to have a stitch go running down the work if you can do this.

Don't worry about yo's.  You can always just lift them up when you go back.

Check what you've done.  Twice.  I like to knit from charts, because you can easily see the st relation from one row to the next.  I start at the beginning of the row, and just slip the sts from the left needle to the right one, correcting stitch orientation as you go.  You do have to be able to read your knitting, to know whether that little thing on the row below is a k2tog or an ssk, or a sk2p.  Pick up any yo's you may have missed.  Then do the same thing again. 

Then knit your first CORRECTED pattern row, paying CLOSE attention to how that row fits with the row below.  If anything doesn't look right, STOP RIGHT NOW and find out what it is.

The first time I started to pick up my sts, I was about half way through the row before I realized I needed to go down about 4 more rows.  No problem.  Rip them out and pick up again.

Now I have the right chart.  I'm 2 rows into it.  So far.  :)

Comments

[Marnie]

I think I'd rather go to the dentist than rip back so much lace.
Sometimes, it just has to be done, eh?

[Emily]

Whenever that happens to me I have to think to myself "It's a good thing I like knitting."

Good luck!

[Mouse]

Whoah.. I just got a little woozy when I realized how much you just ripped out. This is precisely why I don't knit lace at this point in my life.. I have the attention span of a gnat.

[Kendra]

I just realized last night I have to rip out about 75 rows of my self-designed stole I'm working on, and I created the dumb charts! So you're not the only one. But you're right--all you'd ever see in the stole was the error, so kudos to you for deciding to rip it back.

[Beth]

Oh no! That's painful. It even hurts me and I'm not knitting it!

[The Chickengoddess]

So, this must be the "surprise" in "spring shawl surprise"?

I'm sorry, how frustrating. But I'm totally with you. It's a biatch being a perfectionist.

[Glynda Black]

Janice, I feel so much for you. I've done things like that too, and I don't know which is worse, knowing I just flat goofed or having to rip it back. I think you're right to rip it, though. You would always see that problem and regret that you hadn't. Never mind; your lace is really gorgeous, and I'm chomping at the bit to be able to get to it. I have to clear the decks first, though. Chin up and all that stuff. You made the right decision. FWIW, I thought the directions were confusing too.

[Restless Knitter]

It really sucks when you have to rip out so much, especially when you're keeping up with the clues. It looks like it's going to be a nice shawl when it's done, though, so better to rip out the glaring errors now. And at least you weren't too far in.

[Melissa]

Oh, isn't that the worst? I totally know the frustration of ripping back rows of lace. No picnic! Glad to see you did it, though. As you said, you'd have always noticed that spot if you hadn't done it over again.

[Paula]

Oh I love your lace so far. Very beautiful.
I have a giant lace phobia that even chocolate can not cure.

[danielle]

Im'a guessin' you started with either the "big" or "small" for the first clue, then accidentally switched to the other for the second....

Thanks for queuing me in to the project. Haven't started yet, but at least I'm getting the pattern for "someday."

And I still have to use lifelines...I try not to, then regret it. I very rarely have a successful "frog back and pick up" experience with lace cause I always miss a stitch or two, then I have to frog back again. But it usually takes me two or three such incidents before I remember to use the lifelines, or, if it's not too far, I do tink back. I finally finished the Aspen Grove Shawl (I need to post those pics), but I think I knit it two or three times with all of the going back I had to do.