Mistake Be Gone

Lots of traveling lately. Mindful of needing a project that was simple, quick, semi-mindless and easy on the portability scale, I started a Footprints scarf. Footprints is a simple pattern by Stefanie Japel. Her patterns have produced prior success and I was hopeful of another useful accent scarf. So, I got busy knitting and traveling and stopping and starting and stopping again.

Understand, please, that the pattern choice was made because Footprints is very simple - it moves past semi-mindless and tips over into mindless knitting. Not totally mindless, just plain mindless. Plain mindless enough that it is within the realm of possibility that a purl stitch could accidentally become a knit stitch. Yes, this could possibly happen.

Further, once such a reversal switch is made, it follows that a mindless mind just might work the next row, being a 'wrong side' row with an incorrect stitch. (Even though this pattern has no official wrong side. After all, it looks quite presentable from both sides. Not the same, but perfectly presentable.) Let's just go with the flow, pretend that the mindless knitter in question is now on the wrong side row, merrily knitting/purling as each stitch presents, and so she produces a lovely purl in a certain location that should be a knit on this side. But having blown it on the 'right side' now that stitch is reversed. Do you follow - switch, boom, wrong!

And let us just say that this same mindless knitter continues her travels, starting and stopping the knitting with the flow of planes, cars, hotels and meetings and never once notices that the two edges of the scarf are no longer matchy-matchy. Then, in a dull moment of wondering if a landing strip will ever come in to view, she suddenly focuses. Focus on a scarf that looks odd. As in what is that knit stitch doing there on the right side? Should not that be a purl - like this purl over on the right?

Geez! Now the mindless knitting isn't so mindless because that one stitch must be dropped down and corrected. If the correction were 5 or 6 or even 15 rows I would have done it. Yes. I would correct my mindless mistake with grace. But when that one stitch needed to be dropped down about 30 inches I lost my cool, refused to do it and almost accepted my fate of wearing a non-symmetrical scarf.

Then it hit me. Like the proverbial flash of brilliance. Drop the offending stitch all the way down. On both sides! Result? Symmetrical scarf, wider than originally planned but nonetheless unique and brilliantly executed. Witness the result - Ladder to the Moon.