Slippery Stuff!

So I was knitting away on the Hanami Stole last night and I was feeling pretty proud of myself for being on the last repeat of the basketweave pattern (I did 8 repeats instead of 7 for added length). You know that feeling...like you finally arrived and can move on? Well, I was almost at the station when I realized I had goofed up on the row I was knitting. No big deal I thought, as I had tinked back on *many* rows in this design. Let's face it, this one is not for beginners as it requires intense concentration and counting like a crazy woman to keep on pattern. There's no room for error either because one mistake set's you up for disaster on subsequent rows.

So I knitting this thing in a deliciously smooth, 100% silk--double stranded--on super slick KnitPicks needles, right? And I'm shoving the stitches along the needle as I'm carefully tinking about 25 stitches when whoops! My hand slipped and about 10 stitches slid right off the end and promptly started to run. YIKES! It's going on 11 PM, so I'm a little tired, which didn't help either. I carefully lay the knitting on a pillow and grab for my little box with the stitch markers and safety pins. I catch up as many loose loops as I can find before jumping out of bed to find some dpns for the rescue job. Thinking I'm using 3.25mm needles, I grab a set of clover bamboo dpns in the same size, but the dull points and "fat" needles don't seem to want to pick up the silk. That's when I realized I was using smaller needles :-( So I ditch the clovers, and grab some smaller Crystal Palace dpns with the nice pointy tips and smoother surface and start to work.

Those little devils ran like crazy and I ended up tinking back about 6 rows, one stitch at a time because I had no lifeline and no way to put one in after the fact. (I still hate lifelines and won't put one in this project). It took me at least 1 1/2 hrs. to rescue my stole and get her back tot he point where I had all the requisite stitches back on the needles without holes or mistakes. I just finished knitting the last row of the 8th repeat of chart 1. I had hoped to have the transition section (chart 2) finished by now too, but I guess accidents do have a way of interfering with progress.

At least I only have a few rows of basketweave lace left to knit. Funny thing though, this afternoon I was watching the new PBS series, From the Top, on child prodigy musicians playing at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Today they were featuring a youth orchestra playing Beethoven and the ambience stage lighting revealed a lattice pattern as a backdrop to the orchestra--and it looked exactly like the basketweave pattern in the Hanami Stole! I did a triple take to make sure I was just loosing my mind and starting to see strange images. i guess that's what I get for the nightmare I experienced last night >:-{