Go me!

So. I've been working on a stretchable shopping bag for a while. I set it aside for a time, working on finishing up other projects and busy with school and work, and it had laid in my car for a while. I picked it up the other day, since I had nothing else to work on .. it's my only WIP at the moment! .. and the worst thing ever happened.

I screwed up the pattern. It'd been so long since I'd worked on it, that I messed up a whole round before I realized, because I got around to the start again and realized the pattern wasn't working, that I'd messed something up.

The stitch calls for a YO, then a sl1, k2, psso. Well, I didn't do the sl, and didn't psso. And so I added something like 40 stitches to the row. -Not- a good thing. And while I'm glad I caught it when I did, I was at a total loss on how to fix it.

I put it away for a day or two, working on classwork and my annoying teacher issue and other things. I glared at the little pile of half-finished bag. I moaned about how evil it was going to be to fix. Basically, I put it off, until I was in a better frame of mind to tackle what I feared was going to be an impossible repair process.

I sat down today to watch the new Martha shows on my DVR, determined that her influence would allow me to get through the task. It's a rainy day, perfect for sitting and watching TV and knitting, after all. So I started to try to tink. It wasn't working. I made some tea, and sat it down in my lap again. And declared to Brandon, my knitting and Martha partner, that I was going to have to frog.

He cringed. And shuddered. Visibly.

I pulled the circular needle out of the stitched, and started ripping back. And at the time, I was fully prepared to frog all the way back to the stockinette, which forms the very bottom of the bag .. which would mean frogging a full 7 inches of the bag. But as I pulled the yarn back and exposed the rows below, it began to look like I could salvage at least most of the finished work. I worked it back a few repetitions, and sat the fabric in my lap, took a sip of tea, and began the painstaking process of trying to pick up the stitches.

About halfway through Martha, I joyfully announced that I had picked up all the stitches, and proceeded to continue with the pattern. By the time the second episode of Martha was finished, I had knitted back to where I was, and with no apparent interruption of the pattern. I did it! I fixed a possibly horrible mistake! And without having to start all over again!