Tea and Cakes

This week’s delay in Flickr Fiction (which, believe it or not, is supposed to be here on a Friday) is brought to you by lace surgery.

I made a mistake.
I got to the end of the row and was a stitch short.
I counted, and counted again. Still a stitch short.

I unpicked for a while, and recounted. Unpicking “slip 2 as if to knit 2 together, knit 1 and pass 2 slipped stitches over” is tricky at first, but gets easier. Did I mention the mohair content in this yarn? Mmmm, fuzzy.

Eventually, and I really mean eventually, I worked out what was up. I’d missed a yarnover about 3/4 into the last pattern row, which was 2 rows back.

Right. My options were:
a) Unpick 2 rows, add in the yarnover and carry on.
b) Ignore it, increase a stitch so the pattern would work from here on in.
c) Drop the stitches down, add in a yarnover somehow, and pick them back up.

I went for c:

(I did briefly wonder about the wisdom of unpicking purple stitches while leaning over purple pyjama encased legs, but not for too long)

Option c involved a crochet hook, something I’m not particularly good at wrangling. Also, having some idea of how to add in a missing yarnover would have been helpful.

I twisted the crochet hook around a bit, possibly in the way that someone who doesn’t know how to crochet might if they were called to crochet in a film or play. I ended up with this:

There’s an extra stitch there, but the row below is wrapped around them both several times. Almost the opposite of a yarnover.

I unpick again. Wave the crochet hook around in the knitting a bit more. Eventually I end up with this:

To any non-knitters, that’s one pretty normal stitch. I’d spent 20 minutes getting back to exactly where I started from.

I took a deep breath.

And went for option b. Ignore it, increase a stitch invisibly, and carry on as if nothing happened.

Here’s a close up of how it looks now:

I can see the mistake, but I have to look for it.

Besides, mistake? Nah.

Personalisation.