One thing about being an experienced knitter is that you
know what kind of mistakes you are likely to make.  I am no stranger to arithmetic errors,
forgetting how to Kitchner the toe of a sock – and I certainly get “off” on
patterns now and then (usually finding myself shifted over a stitch).  But I usually get back on track quickly and
move on.

But last night, I blew my mind by methodically making the
same silly pattern error over and over
again on the same row!  I was working
on Cape Christmas (over 300 sts per row) which has a branch motif repeated 18
times.  By now, I am fairly familiar with
the motif – which involves twisted stitches and little cables in stockinette on
a background of reverse stockinette (classic) – and once I get a row’s
particular motif dance (in this case:  cable,
p,p, twisted st, twisted st, twisted st, p,p,cable, p) in my head, it is just a
matter of repeating it 18 times across the row. 
So, when I caught my first “p,p,p, twisted st, p,p,p” (i.e., only one
instead of 3 twisted sts), I was a little annoyed at myself, but simply tinked
back and fixed it and continued on. 

Then, after a few motifs, I checked back and realized I had
done the same thing again.  Gritted my
teeth, worked back and fixed it again. 
Continued on.  After a few more
motifs, guess what?  Found I had made The
Mistake — twice!  Augh!  And it kept happening!  You would think that after tinking back 2 or
3 times (undoing cables and each time and dealing with twisted sts), I would
start being more careful.  It was like a
bad dream – I would swear I was doing it all correctly, but then I would catch
myself running over The Spot with a p,p,p, twisted st, p,p,p.  And then
I would glance back over the motifs just worked and find The Mistake two motifs
back!   Out of the 18 motifs, I probably
did 6 or 8 wrong – which meant tinking back and re-doing not only those that
were wrong, but the ones I had done (correctly) after each botched one.  The
row became endless!

Finally, I broke down and put a marker on The Spot before I got to it.  Then, after I had carefully knit those
twisted sts, I would move the marker to the next motif.  And so I did, at last, finish the row with
all those stinking motifs done correctly!