You've Got to Be Cruel to Be Kind (In the Right Measure)

I've been working away on Wino Juno, and the more I see how the DIC Baby is knitting up, the more I like it. There's a really nice level of variegation with this yarn--no pooling, no striping, just some nice texture. The pattern is coming along well, it's pretty straightforward and isn't giving me a lot of trouble . . . . now that I've ripped out 15 INCHES OF SCARF. Yes, you read that right--I ripped out 15 inches of this sucker yesterday, back to within a few inches of the end of the diamond lace pattern.

The problem was a missed decrease, which meant that one of the solid lines was wider than all of the others by a stitch. I tried to convince myself that I couldn't see the problem, but after a few days it was still totally evident to me. I've pointed to the place where I missed it right here:

See the fabric arrow? See how that stripe is slightly wider towards the top? O.K., it isn't really easy to see here, but I could really tell when I pinned out the scarf a little wider, the way it will be once it's blocked. Also, in the process I realized that at some point I made a mistake on the seed stitch border, but I couldn't find that error when I looked (and that, I would have left or corrected surgically later. I don't really think of myself as a super fussy knitter, but when I found myself pointing out the mistake to a non-knitter and saying, "it's o.k., the person I give it to will never notice", I knew that it was time to fix it. Because I haven't really decided who I'm making it for, and I don't want to pick a recipient based on them not caring whether I knit them something with a giant error in it. Because the first thing I would say is "I made a giant error--one stripe is wider than one of the others". Because one of the potential recipients received a scarf from me a few years ago that had a big mistake in it that I didn't realize I'd made until it was too late to fix with any degree of confidence. Anyway, I ripped out everything above the arrow, and I'm not sorry I did it.

Fortunately, the pattern is really straightforward, and it will only take a week or so to re-knit what I've ripped out. But lesson learned, I hope--just because your pattern is set doesn't mean you shouldn't check your numbers every so often . . .