Fluffbuff

Thank goodness for friends. If it weren't for Kathy, I would have strangled the shawl, myself and possibly someone else, today.

She managed to disintangle my mess and see that I had not in fact cut the body of the shawl, as I had thought. The damage to the last few rows of the body was actually my fault, as I had ripped part of the border while still in shock and forgot that, at that end, it was knitted onto live stitches. That was a very good piece of news, and after Kathy did all the hard work of analysing the structure, picking up the stitches at the top of the body and on one side of the border, I was on my way to reknit just a few repeats of the border.

I sure learned a lot today. For one thing, I didn't realize how much harder it is to figure out how to pick up stitches from the bottom than from the top. When I cut and then ripped those few repeats, I was only able to pick up the stitches properly on one side of the border (where the teal markers are). I had tried to pick up the stitches on the other side (salmon markers) and failed.

So, around 3pm or so, I was done with the edge and ready to graft, when…

I saw a mistake several repeats down, and I mean several repeats before where I had reknit the edge. And I got so upset that I inadvertently pulled the needle off the wrong edge. I was ready to throw in the towel, but Kathy picked them up again and got me to the point that I could tink my way back all those rows. She would have unraveled those rows much faster, but I didn't trust myself to do it that way and preferred to tink to the point where I could start reknitting again. Thank you, Kathy!

I am now done with the tinking and the knitting and I'm back where I can graft the two sides of the border. Only, at this point I don't trust myself; I am mentally exhausted by concentrating all day on this. Tomorrow I'll be gone for the sock workshops at Unwind, so this may have to wait until Monday.