Or close to it, as the stitch count added and added.
I had a moment of truth this evening: I was going to have to rip it all out yet again, I said out loud. (Why I haven’t been blogging about knitting the last little bit–you’d have had to cover your ears and hide the yarns.There were moments where planting innocent baby tomatoes and squishing water into resisting dirt saved us all.)
He knew that was his cue but he totally caught me off guard: “But didn’t you use Frog Free yarn? You gotta use Frog Free yarn, y’know!”
I laughed, and it helped as I frogged a day’s worth of work for the third time. In silk (which I had held onto tight so it wouldn’t all go flying off the needles.) On size US 4s (3.5 mm.) All that carpal tunneling for the feels-overrated-right-now Learning Experience of it.
It was just that one missing stitch in the sequence, but it was at the beginning of the sequence and it changed everything and I refused to fudge it. You will see this pattern later, but not before it’s proven itself perfect over and over. Um, that means I have to be, too, and, um. (I’ve already knitted this shawl before. It’s already gorgeous and the pattern just needs confirming. Come ON, Alison!)
And darnit, I began with the right number of stitches the first time, on Saturday, if only I’d seen it.
Meantime, I got more tomato seedlings planted.
I started over. I counted right. I got the sequence right. I got it past failure mode, and we are back in business here. Man, does it feel good.