delancey prog-3I am chugging along at the Delancey Cardigan at a decent pace. The yarn is so wonderful to knit, and I love that Alexis Winslow provides detailed instructions.

However, there have been a few moments of user error. I sometimes forget to click the row counter and then have to count some rows to catch up. I have been speedily knitting and then I realize I was supposed to start the stripes about 10 rows back. I have also forgotten to decrease many times on the shoulder sections or back section and I ripped back for those because I don’t mind a little reknitting, and I’m a sucker for perfect decreases and increases. If it’s too difficult to just drop down a stitch and fix the mistake I riiiiiiiiiiiippppppppp with abandon. I have ripped back small sections at least 10 times now.

One night I was staring at the pattern, counting my stitches and decreases, and I should have had about 8 less stitches. I stared, I counted, I stared. Then I realized I was looking at the row for the smaller size. Um, highlighting or circling your size in the pattern is most useful for overly tired baby-doesn’t-sleep-enough-at-night-so-I-don’t-either brains.

One evening, after I had ripped back one of the shoulder sections at least 3 times that day, I put it down for about 24 hours. I started some plain stockinette socks to soothe myself. Many sites and books talk about the importance of babies learning to self-soothe. I don’t know how I did it as an infant, but as an adult it often involves some stockinette.

As you can see in the picture above, I managed to finish both shoulders and pin them to seam up until I noticed that I forgot to make the last set of stripes.

I may or may not be able to wear this sweater this season, but I will finish it and not abandon it until it starts to get cold next year, like I have with several other sweaters. But right now, I must frog a bit.

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