A Tangled Disaster!

I had my first real knitting disaster today, and I nearly cried! Last night as I was working on my tangled yoke, the tangled portion, I realised at the end of one row I had one extra stitch. I counted and recounted and searched and could not discover where this stitch had come from. So, as recommended by those who have experienced such strange phenomenon at night, I decided to put it down, go to sleep and look again in the morning.

So this morning I looked again. Still no luck. No idea where this mysterious stitch has come from and why it is here. So, in my wisdom, I decided one extra stitch was no problem, I would just k2tog and continue on with the pattern. But that didn't work. Well it did for the first side of the cardigan, all looked good and I was pleased with my progress. But when I reached the second half, where the pattern is reversed, I saw it - A DISASTER!

I had missed one stitch in the beginning of the previous round which meant that on this half the increases were 1 stitch off and didn't line up with the pattern. And of course, because I didn't realise this until after I had completed the row with the mammoth and multiple cable stitches. And while one side looked perfect, the other side looked odd, there was no cable twist where there was meant to be and instead of crossing, the stitchs sort of looped back so they were next to each other and not across each other. If that makes sense.

I thought "I can fix this" and endeavoured to drop the necessary stitches, retwist the cables and voila! problem solved! But no, this was not meant to be. I couldn't figure out how many stitches should be dropped, how to cable twist them considering each section involved numerous cable twists, and then I saw a few dropped stitches and I couldn't figure out where they belonged.

So I did it. I ripped it back to before I began the tangled yoke pattern. I nearly cried. I felt angry, sad, frustrated and exasperated. My picking up stitches skills lack too, so although I have got all the stitches back on the needle, a few have dropped a row or two, many (or most) will be twisted and I'm sure I have hours of frustration to fix it all and get it back to where I was.

Maybe I will try a lifeline this time. I don't think I could handle this again.