Shawl 4, Knitter 0

OK, so when I frogged the edging, I thought I was being all smart by measuring roughly how much yarn I used, plus a little more. (I used the Vickie Howel tip of cutting a piece of cardboard 18" long so that each wrap equals a yard.) I then re-wound the ball of yarn from the end of the ball marking the end of the yards needed for the edging. The plan was to knit repeats until I saw the marker and then I would start the edging. I was able to add two more pattern repeats before I noticed the marker in the yarn. Things were looking good. Unfortunately, the first time around I did not actually cast off the edging. So I was cruising along when I realized that I had about 2 feet of yarn left and still had to cast off 250+ stitches.

Rip, rip, rip.

Trying to avoid frogging too much, I only frogged back to the eighth row of the edging pattern. I left out rows 9 and 10 (just a repeat of the previous two rows) thinking that this had bought me enough yardage to finish the edging. Once again, I thought all was coming together. I even went up a needle size to make sure that I cast off loosely enough. Again, there was about 2 feet of yarn and still half the number of stitches still left to cast off.

Rip, rip, rip.

I thought, perhaps if I didn't go up a needle size, then I would have enough yarn. Nope.

Rip, rip, rip.

OK, so obviously I will have to rip out one of the pattern repeats. So out come all 11 rows of edging. Stupidly, I counted six pattern rows for the main pattern. I forgot to include the purl rows. So when I picked up the stitches, I realized that I had not ripped back far enough.

Rip, rip, rip.

So now I have finally ripped back to the actual end of the previous repeat. I have picked up 200+ stitches again. I am going back to make sure I didn't drop any YOs along the way. Then I will attempt the edging again. I am determined to finish this tonight. Of course, if I screw up again, I'm not sure I can face more frogging and picking up stitches. (Don't anyone say anything about the lack of lifelines--somewhere the Knitting Goddess is laughing at me.)

I should have just accepted the fact that there would be left over yarn and then I could have been done last week. Of course, it would have bothered me to know that I could have added another pattern repeat. Its a sickness I tell you.