What Would You Do?

Bollywood Sequence Scarf with a twist!

On the face of it, this post is about knitting.  But fear not all ye non-knitters.  There’s a lesson here for everyone….

It has been a while since I posted an update about any of my knitting projects.  I was starting to think about what I might write on this topic, when fate intervened.

I had been making steady progress, in the margins of working on other knitting projects, with my Bollywood sequence scarf – see posts here and here for a brief bit of back-story, and this post for more information about my sequence knitting source book.

Work on this scarf stopped in recent months, however, in favour of a second sequence scarf, using West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply (Wood Pigeon) and Rowan Kid Silk Haze (smoke).  When I bought the yarn for this, I could not resist immediately casting on!

On a whim, I decided yesterday to get back out my Bollywood project, happily reminding myself of how much I adore the way in which the colours are emerging.  Off I went – knit, knit, knit.  Adding a good 4cm or so in no time at all.  But then I noticed something – can you see it in this close-up?

 

Yes, I had somehow managed to knit nearly two inches with a slightly different pattern to the rest of the scarf.  I’m not sure how this happened.  The sequence works over a repeat of 12 stitches and it is usually obvious at the end of a row if something has gone awry.  I can only think that there must have been compensating errors in one of my early rows, which did not reveal themselves at the turn.

So, what to do?  My instinct was to rip out the most recent knitting and resume with the correct pattern, which should look like this:

In fact, prior to writing my last post, I am 100% sure I would have taken this course of action.  But something made me stop and really look at how the knitting was coming out.  I found that I rather liked the new stitch pattern, and the contrast with the first.  You can see the overall effect in the picture at the top of this post – only a subtle difference, but quite an interesting one (click to enlarge the photo – you can clearly see the new pattern next to the needles).

So, in a fit of glorious recklessness, I am going to leave it for now and carry on.  After all, in the grand scheme of being gung-ho about something, this is pretty low-risk.  If it ends up looking rubbish, all that I will have lost is some knitting time – it will be easy to rip back if need be.  And hey, it might turn out to be my favourite knit ever.  But if I don’t give it a go, I will never know.

I will report on progress in due course.  Meanwhile, what would you do if you were faced with an endeavour that took an unexpected turn?  Turn back, or go with it and enjoy the ride?

The next time you come up against what seems to be a ‘failure’, look instead for the new doors which seem to be opening.  🙂

“Observe your imperfections. Love them. Then move through them.”
~ Matthew Donnelly