A Minor Bump in the Road

That mess of yarn in the picture is the disaster I just had to rip out - hours of work done late last night (it really doesn't pay to knit when tired...)

I picked up the second sock this morning, well passed the gusset and midway down the foot, only to discover I had dropped a stitch off the end of my in-step needle TWENTY EIGHT rows ago...OHMYGOD...

I always keep a crochet hook nearby so I calmly began picking up the stitches. I'd have to say the first 8 rows were easy; the next 10 were tricky but managable; the last 10, however strained the boundaries of reason and sense. I did manage to get that last loop back onto my needle without breaking the yarn-how I don't know- but the result was impossibly tight, hideously ugly, and promised to be too uncomfortable to wear. So.........

Out it all came...plus and extra few rows because my frustration caused me to rip out with such abandon I couldn't quite stop where I had planned to.

Lesson learned- avoid knitting when bleary eyed; stop and admire your work frequently; and accept the fact that, at least with sock yarn, picking up a dropped stitch that's run down more than a dozen rows or so, is probably not going to look good enough to warrant the trouble. Sometimes ripping back is the only choice!

Yours in a mess of tangles,
Claire