Mindful Shmindful

There's only so much mindful knitting a human can take. I've reached my limit for the day and I have only one thing more to say to myself about that: you are so smart for putting in that lifeline! Go ahead, Rudee and pat yourself on the back.

I have 3 things to say to the designer:

1. Since when has SSK meant SKP? I am doing it your way, but every single time I see SSK, I want to slip, slip knit, and you want me to slip, knit pass. Your way looks better, but when I see this, \, and this, SSK, my brain fights my fingers. I have to stop and think about what I'm doing a dozen times in each right side row.
2. I wish you hadn't included the edges in the total stitch count. This confounds me, too.
3. Your pattern is stunning. I can't really complain without offering up my profound respect for what your brain offered up to the rest of us knitters who don't, or can't, design. Amazing!

That said, I have ripped back once to the lifeline at the end of chart B and started again. Between rows 63 and 65, stitch counts go from 184 on the needles (yes, that includes 4 edge stitches) to 168 and then explodes to 280 stitches in one row. The larger holes at the bottom of the photos is where all that action happens. To say the least, I'm charmed. My first go around, I was off by just 2 stitches and couldn't find my errors, but the mistakes were enough to throw the pattern off. After all of this work, I wasn't going to live with a hole where none should be or a solid set of stitches where a hole should be. The decision was made, after counting and recounting the recalcitrant stitches (I recounted 6 times, duh), to rip back and start row 64 all over. Though it took awhile to catch back up, I think in the long run, I saved a bit of my sanity.

A Lifeline Runs Through It

Last but not least, I'd like to pay homage to the much maligned purl stitch. I hear plenty of knitters gripe about this poor little stitch. Some will only make items in garter stitch, or prefer knitting in the round in order to avoid the purl. I say, there's nothing like a complicated right side row to make a knitter appreciate the return row done in straight purl stitches. It's a thing of beauty, relief and mindless knitting.