Déjà Tricoté

Sorry for the gap in postings. Christmas has rather caught up with me. (Thanks to everyone for your comments, which kept me amused - and a special hello to nimblynaff in South Africa!) On the odd occasion lately that I felt like dictating, Richard wasn't here to type. And every time he was available to type, my brain took on the consistency of damp cotton wool, without even the possibility of cress seeds growing in it to give it a bit of life and vigour. (Do kids still do that at school, grow cress seeds on damp cotton wool? I remember doing that quite vividly. And growing broad beans against the side of a jar. Mind you, I remember dissecting a rat and a bull's eye as well, so it shows you how long ago I went to school...)

Anyway, I had a bit of a disaster last week. At least, I said it was a disaster - Richard insisted that, as it was fixable, it was more of a hiccup. "A disaster," he said, "would be your yarn catching fire because you were knitting so fast." Phew, no chance of that, then.

It all happened because I thought that I could remember the pattern. I was supposed to do part of the row in garter stitch, and part of the row in a pattern stitch; it was roughly 80 sts in pattern and 60 sts in garter stitch, but in my cotton wool state this translated on my needles into 60 sts in pattern and 80 sts in garter stitch. And then, to compound the error, I increased one stitch on every row instead of on every other row.

I only noticed something was wrong when I came to cast off, held up the entire thing to look at it, and realised it was a shapeless mess. I nearly wept when I realised that it would all have to be unpicked.

Eight.

Bloody.

Inches.

I am not a one for making New Year's Resolutions, but I think my resolution for this year may be summed up thusly: Never Assume You Can Remember The Pattern, Even When You Have Written It Yourself...

(I did unpick it, and reknit it, and it worked fine the second time. Thank goodness knitting is forgiving!)

Tigger says, "Relax..."