Learning the hard way

The evening hours can be a great time for crafting.  The house is quiet,  the kids are in bed, the daytime chores are done. Sometimes I get so caught up in a project that I just have to keep going a little longer to see how it's going to turn out.  Sometimes there is a deadline for completion so I keep on working past what should have been bedtime. 

However, I have learned the hard way that there are some things you should not do when you are tired.  One of those things is using a rotary cutter.  I think that if there were a study done about what time of day most rotary cutting accidents occur it would show that after 10:00 pm is the most common. (Not to worry, this is not a blog post about a rotary cutting accident).  Another common error with cutting late at night is just that you can cut pieces the wrong size because your brain is too tired to notice.

Now I have added another item to the list of things you should not do when your brain is tired. Knitting.  Even though I stop and check my work every few rows,  a major mistake managed to pass under my correction radar and by the time I saw it, hours of  additional work had been put into it.

Behold exhibit "A":

This is the front of the sweater I have been working on.  I took this photo a week or so ago, and even posted it on my blog, never seeing anything wrong with it.

But today, on closer inspection, I saw it.  A mistake in the cable. Do you see it?

How about now?

I checked with my knitting experts (Hello Mom and Joanne!) and they both agreed there was no miracle cure for correcting a bad cable.  Sure, you can go back and fix a knit or a purl stitch, but this is something different all together.

Now I have to tear out quite a bit of the front, including the perilous armhole shaping, and do it again.

The lesson here, my dear blog reading friends, is to put away that knitting when you are still alert, or at least re-check your stitches again in the morning. 

Sincerely,

Auntie Em   (making mistakes so you don't have to)