Wednesday, September 06, 2006

When is there one mistake too many?

While on vacation I started a Print O'The Waves stole and violated almost every one of the basic rules of lace knitting, including knitting on a transatlantic flight while cramped into a bizarre position and in inadequate light. Much to my horror, though not to my surprise, when I got home and picked it up again I noticed quite a few mistakes. I considered frogging the whole thing (about 15" worth of the central panel) but my husband convinced me that "nobody will notice." Since then I have done another several pattern repeats and made a few more errors. The question is... will the mistakes be more or less obvious after it is blocked? AND... can I give the stole as a gift knowing that it isn't 100% perfect?



In the meantime, I borrowed the Myrna Stahman book on Faroese shawls from a friend. What wonderful and practical designs! There was some nice green Uruguayan wool that was happily stowed in my stash just begging to be knit as a GS Gracie. I guess after all that lace-weight yarn it was time to switch to something thick and warm and cozy, especially with summer over and the temperature dropping. I have ordered my own copy of the book, but the yarn didn't want to wait until it arrived, so I just had to get started right away. It seems to be going very quickly, which is a good thing, because I have some more Zephyr on the way and another shawl at the top of the project list. (And we won't even mention UFO'S!)

2 comments:

KarenK said...

I'd frog it and do it over (especially for a gift), but that's my burden to deal with OCD perfectionism. Look at it this way: When you finish this project, what will you do next? Knit something, right? So why not frog this project and do more knitting on it? That's what you would be doing anyway! :-) Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

Angelfire212 said...

I guess it depends on you and the pattern. If it's obvious that there are mistakes (a change in the pattern, a severe drop in the number of stitches, etc.), then I would frog and re-knit. However, if it's one stitch here and there, and it truly doesn't show unless you look REALLY closely, then I'd leave it. Of course, this comes from the woman who refuses to give anything less than perfect and who frequently frogs and re-knits things to make them at least look perfect to her.