I did it. It took me two and a half hours, to my surprise, and the longer it dragged on the more I had to finish it now and not come back later. I did it.

My late friend Gracie Larsen (here, and here) once taught me that when you want to undo from the bottom, the best method is to snip at the side several rows below where you want there to be live stitches. Not too close.

And then basically you do a reverse kitchener stitch, (grafting, for the non-knitters) unwinding that strand up and down and in and out till you get to the other end of the row.

That was one really long row.

The fact that I’d set the stitches by rinsing the afghan and laying it out to dry helped them behave, but the yarn was still kinked and it had to be done slowly and with a hand on and the needle through the stitch the strand was being pulled through–on the lower stitches. On the upper ones that would soon be done away with, I learned fast that you have to be careful with them, too, or you’ll have multiple unravelings catching on yours and getting in the way.

I apologized to the guy at the garage for being later than I’d expected.

Not a problem, he smiled warmly.

The car has a new tire.

The afghan looks so much better with that mismatching edging gone. I actually started to cast on a new edging piece first and chucked it–I needed to scratch that itch. I needed to see it done.

Next time I see a pattern not working and ask myself if it’s worth frogging and starting over vs just going on from there? Frog it.