Bliss

I started this blanket the day before yesterday. It's beginnings came under dark clouds, sad to say. I had been crocheting a hooded blanket for my baby to be, but, a mere 6 inches from the end, I noticed a fatal error.

See, the blanket I was making started out at 25 inches in width along the bottom. I didn't notice until halfway through that I was using the wrong yarn, and wrong hook size, so the size I had was not going to mesh with the pattern size. But I shrugged and plodded on.

One night, I thought I was being clever and took the blanket out in public with me to work on at a meeting, but I left the pattern at home. Somehow, I added a few stitches in some of the rows, and the result was a very noticeable buldge along one of the side edges. Again, this was a mistake I could overlook. I firmly believed that when the edging was done, it would cover the mistake....or at least make it less noticable.

Well, New Year's Day, I pulled it out to finish the blanket part so I could get about with the hooded part. After crocheting happily for an hour or so, I decided to measure it. I laid it out flat and measured the width along the bottom. Still 25 inches. Then I took a good look at it. The top (where I was still adding to it) was not the same width as the bottom. With a wee bit of dread in my heart, I measured the top.

...23 inches...

Somewhere between the bump mistake and where I had stopped to measure, I had LOST 2 inches. Looking at the blanket, I could theoretically see where the lost stitches had occured. But looking at it the way it was...I knew I could not continue on. I would have to frog back to one of the mistakes. Either the bump or the decrease would have to be corrected. But the bump was halfway down. If I took out that much work, I would not have finished the blanket. I know myself. I would not have been able to make myself continue.

So, I made the decision to scrap the entire thing. It was very sad to rip out the blanket and rewind the yarn. I was kind of okay while doing it, until my husband remarked that I looked sad. Of course I started to cry. I'm pregnant, hormonal, and this blanket was to be for the baby, darn it!

The good news is, the next day, the new issue of Magknits was up. There was a pattern for a baby blanket. An Entrelac baby blanket. I've been wanting to try entrelac for...well forever. Probably since I first started knitting. I had the yarn to start it in my stash, I just needed the needles...and since I also need these same needles to finish a bib I've got almost done, the purchase was justified.

There was a tense moment when I accidentally dropped the last 5 stitches of the cast on edge while making the last triangle for the base tier, though. I sat there looking at the lonely loops that were no longer on my needle, with the working yarn still wrapped around my left hand. My husband looks over as I gasp and asks if I need help. Very carefully, very gently, I dropped the working yarn and with the precision of a bomb diffuser, I placed the dropped stitches back on my left needle. As you can see from the picture above, all is right with the world now.