A couple of days ago, I found an error in the “cable” section of my Cape Christmas project.  The mistake was about 20 rows down and consisted of a traveling (crossed) stitch done on the wrong row. It looked like a hiccup in the diagonal line.  It was a subtle, but unmistakable mistake.  And I immediately resolved to fix it by “dropping down” and uncrossing the wrongly crossed stitches and crossing the two that were supposed to cross.  But I did not have the time to do surgery (as I call it) that evening, so I set it aside.

Two days later — on a sunny afternoon with plenty of time to work — I sat down with crochet hook and those little plastic safety-pin-type markers that I love and Cape Christmas.  I started dropping the stitches in the two columns involved in the error.  About 8 rows down, I stopped dumb-struck.  I had been approaching the problem as if it were a cable, but it was, of course, not a true cable, but a pattern of traveling stitches:  1^st stitch crossed with 2^nd stitch on row 1, 2^nd st. crossed with 3^rd st. on row 3, etc. over 5 sts.  So, all 5 columns of stitches were connected to each other. 

I would have to drop the stitches of all 5 columns for some 20 rows to get to the stitches that needed to be fixed!

I am gutsy.  But I am not that gutsy.  If I had only had 2 stitch columns to deal with, I could have used the other 3 columns to orient myself and make sure I was staying in pattern.  With all five columns gone, I would surely make mistakes not unlike the one I was hoping to correct.  And it would be a big, loose stringy mess.  5 columns of stitches for 20+ rows?  Over a hundred stitches to be re-done (with all those crossed stitches!).  Even if, after several (probably many!) attempts and pullings-out and re-doings, I got it all correct, I suspect the yarn (merino and silk)would have suffered and probably the stitches would be wonky and uneven. 

So, I am going to do that which I seldom do.  I am going to knowingly let the error stand –even though it is, theoretically, correctable.  I have assured myself that I am not being cowardly or lazy.  That a little humility is a good thing.  That I am not perfect, that my knitting is not perfect, that Cape Christmas is not going to be perfect – and am I pretty nearly okay with all of that non-perfection. 

And what is the Life Lesson I can take from this situation?  What we always tell our students:  to look at the work carefully and frequently!  If I had noticed the mistake after only a few rows, I could have fixed it by dropping a manageable number of stitches.  Now, it is just too late (since I am unwilling to pull back thousands of stitches, hours and hours of work to correct this small error). 

So, lesson (re)learned.  Time to move on.  Cape Christmas looks to be a gorgeous piece.