Rambling and Linkage

Despite my lack of spinning output these days, I've spent the past couple of weeks knitting like a madwoman. I started and FINISHED the Hedgerow Socks (here's a link for more information about these lovely socks, and I'll graft the toe and get pictures up later this week) using Knitpicks Gloss sock yarn, in under three weeks. I've started and blasted through 1/3 of a scarf in a beautiful Plymouth Tweed yarn that I couldn't stop myself from buying. (If you click that Plymouth Tweed link, it's the green yarn right there - obviously they chose that specific color to represent their line of tweed yarn because it is the best green yarn ever made.) Oh yeah, and I've started knitting a pair of socks for Duglifer, using my handspun Fine Gray Shetland wool (from Louet), in a pattern of my own devising. (Devising = a doodle on a sticky note.)

Sadly, I've temporarily abandoned my half-finished Clementine Shawlette. I have to confess that while knitting on it during a movie, I wasn't paying attention and put the right-side-purl-rows in the wrong order. Instead of having a nice little horizontal line of stitches every four rows to accentuate the angles of the chevron lace, the line falls every four rows for the first 15 inches of knitting and then it shows up again in 2 rows, then in 6 rows, then in 4 rows, then in 2 rows again...and it kind of looks like ASS. I'm pretty sure no one would notice, and since I'm very likely keeping the shawl for myself it doesn't REALLY matter, but it bothers me enough that I've wadded the project up and stuffed it on a shelf behind some books. If it were any other yarn, I'd just rip it back to before the point in the pattern where I apparently lost 50 IQ points, pick up the live stitches and knit on as if nothing had ever happened. But this is that unnaturally soft Faux Cashmere (nylon) that I spun and it is incredibly slippery. When I've accidentally dropped stitches, I've had to grab and hang on to them for dear life lest they unravel right out to the very beginning - which would not be the end of the world in plain stockinette stitch; I'd just latch the column of stitches back up with a crochet hook - but in this lacy pattern replete with yarn-overs and decreases, dropping a stitch would mean starting allllllll over again. No thanks! So ripping out and leaving the stitches live is just not possible. It has occurred to me, however, that I could run a "lifeline" (this is fancy knitters' jargon for "needle and thread") through the row that I want to rip back to, which would keep the stitches from going anywhere while I pick them up again. I think I'll try that this week, because I was really enjoying knitting that pattern and I don't want to scrap the shawl after I worked so hard on it...and I definitely don't want to just finish it wrong; the mark of a good knitter is not Making No Mistakes, but ripping out and reknitting and PRETENDING you've made no mistakes. I'll let you guys know how it goes! (Because I know you're all on the edge of your seats about my shawl.)

Actually...starting allllll over again might not be the worst thing ever. There were a couple of additional places early on in the shawl where I made barely discernible mistakes and left them as-is because of the slippery yarn, but those bother me, too. And they might actually SHOW, after the piece is blocked. Ripping the whole thing out and starting over might be worth it. I think I understand the pattern better now, so the piece would be better for it. Your thoughts?