Oh, fu--

I'm knitting along happily, so happily, too happily on Juno Regina. Stop for the first time to check if I'm close to starting the last set of charts, and see - shazam! I'm right there! Don't have to frog at all! Don't need to keep knitting! Perfect timing! Start the charts. Takes five tries, but I do the first row right. And then I notice that the chart for the first and last stitches of each row looks a little bit more like a checkerboard than I remember.

And I've been doing the leading and ending stitches in garter for... check the shawl... since I finished the charts for the first ends.

And before that... check the shawl... I was doing seed stitch.


LOUD NOISES. PROFANE LANGUAGE.

That moment of realization. That moment where the evidence six inches from your nose says to you, hey, you've just f*#@$! up *months* worth of knitting. AHHHHHHHHH.

So, wait. Can I live with the ends in seed stitch and the middle in garter? (And keep in mind, this is just the edge stitches. Barely noticeable.) Yes. Theoretically I can. I could just start the seed stitch again and move on with my life.

But upon further reflection, I realize that I've been doing garter stitch in all purls (not all knits), and the row was supposed to start and end with a purl, so theoretically I should be able to drop the column of middle stitches all the way down the edge and then pick up those stitches in seed stitch. Not ideal, but didn't EZ do that sort of thing to put in false seams after knitting a whole stockinette sweater body in the round? I'm pretty sure she did.

Alright. Rock and roll, I'm McGuyver, hand me a locking stitch marker and we're going in. I take the first stitch off, the edge stitch, and trap it with a stitch marker, then slide all the other stitches down to the safe end of the needle. (I'm confident I can handle the middle stitch, but edge stitches do not play nice with me. If I drop an edge stitch and it goes anywhere, I am utterly screwed. I know this about myself.)

Then I drop down the middle stitch for FEET and FEET of knitting.



And then I think... wait, am I actually right that picking up the middle stitch in seed will work? Will that produce seed stitch or a weird kind of ribbing?

Panic sets in.

AAAAHHHHHHHHHH.

Wait, brain says. Before you commit to a panic attack, just try picking it up in seed.

So I did. And it worked.

So I just spent an HOUR picking up a stitch for FEET and FEET of knitting.

And that was just the first side.


Things We Have Learned Today

1. Okay, your intuitive grasp of the relationship of seed stitch to garter is surprisingly good.
2. Your explicit grasp of the relationship of seed to garter is alarmingly bad.
   
3. This means you should probably never try to explain it to anyone.
   
4. Maybe, you should try something out on, say, 3 rows of stitches, rather than 300, if you're not sure it's going to work.
   
5. Looking at the pattern at least once every three months might be a good policy too.
   

My latest plan is to focus on one WIP at a time until my plate is a little more clear. Well, I'll try. Yeah.