Perseverance

For the upcoming Special Olympics Canada Winter Games taking place in St. Albert and Jasper, Alberta, a call has been put out for 2,500 scarves.

I've been enjoying checking out all the scarves I've seen being knit or crocheted in Edmonton, and spent a bit of time working on my own contribution as well. Now, I could have crocheted the scarf much more quickly, and that's what I usually prefer to do with scarves, but I had been wanting to make Sarah Hoadley's Building Block Scarves for quite some time, so I grabbed my yarn, and dove right in.

After casting on a large number of stitches (this scarf is worked from the outside inwards, in the round) and knitting until the first colour change, I realized that I should actually check the required specifics for the scarves.Having done so, I found that the pattern as written would not work, as it would not be anywhere near long enough.

I ripped back to the beginning, and cast on enough stitches to make it the required length, thinking all the while that if it didn't work this time, that I would crochet a scarf instead. Luckily, things went swimmingly from there. Or at least, things were going swimmingly until I was nearly finished the bind-off in the centre of the thing. I hadn't placed my markers correctly, so one set of lovely mitred corners were entirely in the wrong place, making it look less like a scarf, and more like a floppy woolen imitation of a hockey stick.

I drew in a deep breath, and considered my options.

a-I could pull it out, and start a different scarf.
b-I could take scissors to the end, and apply my limited sewing skills to the problem in an attempt to salvage things.
c-I could drop around 96 stitches down to the second row, and ladder everything back up, correcting the placement of the decreases as I went.

I decided on c, as I could always try b if that didn't work, and then resort to a after that if needed.

Option c took several tries as it took me awhile to get the hang of things, and to really sort out where the decreases were supposed to be. It does take quite awhile to ladder up 96 or so stitches in garter stitch, but in the end, I think it worked out not too badly:

and I'm glad I didn't give up.