The hardest lesson for me to learn in the 3 years I’ve been knitting is that mistakes can be fixed. This isn’t carpentry or sewing where you have to measure twice because you can only cut once (well, you can cut twice but only to make something smaller). Knitting has the benefit that you can always go back and fix an error, if you choose to.

I think my reaction to finding a hole chewed in my completed Ribby Cardi sleeve shows how far I’ve come. Three years ago, I probably would have thrown it and the other pieces into the back of the closet and forgotten it. Instead, it only took me a few moments to consider how to approach the problem before tackling it. It then only took about 20 minutes total to fix.

I didn’t blink twice as I pulled out my cast-off and ripped back to the hole. Then I ripped back a few more rows to get a tail and to figure out where amongst the sleeve decreases I was. From there it was rather easy to attach new yarn and reknit the top of the sleeve. My wanting for a wearable sweater overrode my fear of mistakes (both making them and being unable to recover from them).

What’s funny is that, for a hard knitting lesson, this isn’t one you see in knitting books. Oh sure, they cover dropping down stitches to make fixes or even picking up dropped stitches. Knitters on lists and in their blogs talk about ripping back or frogging projects completely. But, coming to an understanding of the semifluid nature of knitting itself is rarely mentioned — yes, you’ve spent a large amount of time knitting an item, but it can be undone in a matter of minutes. I think this isn’t usually mentioned because knitters shy away from the idea that it can all be undone. Yet at the same time, being able to completely unravel means that mistakes don’t have as much impact. You can simply go back, fix the error, and continue onwards. Of course, knowing this is not embracing it…

but I think I’m getting closer…