Crap.

Well, crap. Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap. Crap! (Which, by the way, is not really the word I would like to say here, but oh well.)

I have slacked on blogging because life has been crazy, but I have been knitting. I am almost finished with Mom's sweater, finally. I was sewing up the first of two side seams today. Everything else is done, I just had to sew up the sides and weave in the 4 ends of the side-seam-sewing yarn and it was ready for a wash and block. (Yeah, I know, I was supposed to seam the side and the sleeve at the same time, but I went ahead and did the sleeve ... I wanted to make sure it would fit Mom.) I was a little over halfway through, up to the center ribbing, and I realized something was NOT. RIGHT. I was only at the center ribbing on the front piece. I still had about an inch and a half to go on the back before I hit the ribbing.

So I'm sitting here, pulling out all the nice little stitches. And here I thought this seam was going so well. Taking forever, but working out nicely. But oh well, I'll just go back, find where I got off track, make sure all the decreases match up properly and work in any ease from one side being stretched out or whatever the problem was. Right?

Not right.

See, when I started looking at the decreases, they actually did match up. They're off by one row. Not a problem. I can deal with one row. But wait, if all the decreases match up, then why is my seam so off ... oh. Oh no. Oh yes, folks, that's right: the back piece has six sets of decreases. (Which is the correct number.) The front piece, on the other hand, only has five.

Crap. (Did I mention that part yet? Well, I'll say it again for good measure. CRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPP.)

Counted the decreases on the other front pieces. Again, five. So here's my dilemma. I can go back and add another set of decreases (10 rows) to each one of the front pieces, or I can go back and take out one set of decreases (again, 10 rows) from the back. Technically, I was supposed to decrease 6 times, which would mean the back is the correct piece. But here's the other dilemma. The decreases are completed before the center ribbing, before the textured pattern, before any of the armhole/neckline shaping. You're telling me I have to rip all that out just to add 10 rows? To each piece? No way buddy. That's just not gonna happen. No, what I'm gonna do is cut off the bottom ribbing on the back piece, frog 10 rows and knit the ribbing back on. This may leave me with an extra set of decreases. I'm not sure how many rows I worked before starting the decreases. But I don't care. It's only 2 stitches, it's not really gonna make a difference. It'll also make the whole thing 10 rows shorter, but, hey, that's just a little over an inch. So it'll be an inch shorter. Fortunately, it was a little too long on Mom when she tried it on the other day, anyway. Plus, it's a cotton blend. It'll stretch. That 10 rows will never be missed.

But it means I have to rip out this entire seam, cut off the ribbing, rip out 10 rows, knit the ribbing back and start this seaming process all over again. It's not the end of the world, but it still makes me want to cry. Just a little.

And the kicker? I have no idea how I managed to miscount the decreases on not only one but both front pieces. My own notes clearly say to work a total of 6 sets of decreases. And I distinctly remember thinking that when I was working the fronts. I just counted wrong. In my own defense, I'm not stupid, but I knit those two pieces while my stepfather was in the hospital dying from cancer. I blame my distraction for my sudden inability to count to six.