Remember the post that got me so inspired (click there to refresh your memory) to finish my works-in-progress? Me too. It really was great. Very inspirational. Got me going right away on my oldest WIP, the Charleston Tea hoodie. And I’m trying not to let what happened over the next several days derail me. Here is what happened:

I got out my Charleston Tea hoodie. That part went well. I read the pattern. That’s where things started going south.

I thought I only had the hood left, but I was wrong. I also had the button band to complete. That involves more brain power: 1) Picking up a certain ratio of stitches all the way up one side, around the hood and down the other side – a lot of stitches. 2) Then there is the whole buttonhole placement which I’m not even going to describe – it involves more brain power (to describe and to do).

So then I start negotiating with myself. First: “Liz, you never button your sweaters because you are too hot. You could forget the buttons and buttonholes.” Then: “Ok, that might look weird. You could put buttons on, with no buttonholes.” Then: “Yeah! Later, if you really want to close it, you can add snaps.” Perfect solution. I was re-motivated. Things were looking up.

Trucking along on the hood, two days later I get to this point:

This is where it starts going south again. The green pen is where I started working on the hood. I worked all the way up to the top, increasing like the pattern told me to, about 6 inches or so. Then, for some reason while looking at the instructions (for the 80th time), it hit me: I was doing it wrong. I was only supposed to increase 5 times (or, to where that pink pen is) and then just knit without increasing. I knit 3 1/2 extra inches with increases that will have to be frogged (ripped out).

Remember in that inspirational post where I talked about my patience and my distractability? THIS right here is my worst nightmare. I absolutely hate having to re-do something, especially when it’s my own darn fault. So, I chose to blame it on the sweater and it is currently in time out, thinking about what it has done.

“Ok,” I said to myself, “this is just a start-of-the-project blip. Now you’re in the zone. Pick up something else, something easy, to get you back on track and re-motivated, then you can get the sweater out of time out.”

Already my idea of starting with the oldest WIP and working forward was going out the window because I picked something in the middle of the pack. My Maine Morning Mitts (free pattern alert! click there to see it on Ravelry) which I started on October 5, 2016:

This would be a piece of cake! The pattern is easy! I’ve already got one done! And the second one started!

So I picked up the un-done one to get going and found this:

What the….? What you are looking at is a small bound-off area, right in exactly the wrong place. Also, it’s hard to see but on the right hand needle there are a few extra stitches that shouldn’t be there, just added in willy-nilly.

Then it all started coming back to me. There was a tag on the finished mitt that The Spinning Room yarn shop had put on to advertise the class I taught for this pattern. The reason I put the project down is that the class was over and distractability took over and I went on to something else.

But, the class is why that second mitt looks like that. I used it in class to show the participants how to bind off in pattern when they got to the top of the mitt (hence the small bound-off area), how to cast on for when they got to the thumb hole and how to do an M1 increase for the thumb gusset (hence the several extra stitches). Apparently I put that mitt right in my bag after class and never saw it again until now.

No problem! Now I knew what to do. Things were looking up again. I un-did all that stuff and got to knitting. Another day or two of getting something done. Hooray! I even knit outside next of our new fire pit.

But then… things went south again.

I picked up the mitt the next day, realizing I only had 10 more rows of the hand and then the thumb to knit. Hooray again! So close! I’m going to say right here that I have made these mitts several times. I’ve given away a couple pairs and I made a pair for myself. I know the pattern.

Just as I was on my last round, I realized I had been knitting every stitch instead of keeping the knit 2, purl 1 pattern. Crap! Again…. my. worst. nightmare. Ripping back, especially when it is my own darn fault. So, here comes the negotiating: “Liz, no one will know. It’s a subtle pattern. They are for you. Are you really going to care?”

So I bound off the stitches and did the thumb. There. Finished. And I’ll tell you what: I do care.

I’ts the one on the left. It looks terrible. It flares out because of the change in pattern and the bind off is rolling for the same reason. I’m not one to fuss much over little mistakes and will keep knitting even though I know they are there. But this? There is no forgetting about it. It’s too obvious.

Straight into time out.

I’m working on my most recent WIP again until I can get it together.

Nice, easy, roundy-round knitting. (She says as if she didn’t just write a whole blog post about easy knitting that went wrong….)

I’m blaming all of this on the pandemic environment and how it gives you that brain fog thing.

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