Prescience

It must have been prescience…

I know the theory of lifelines, but rarely effect the practice. Sometimes I put one in for the first pattern or two, but soon get fed up and lapse. I’ve never actually had the need of one, so it has been easy to be lax about it.

For the Butternut Scarf, I put one in after the first full pattern but having found it a straightforward knit, didn’t bother thereafter. Except, I put one in  at the half way point, more or less when I put the project to sleep for a while.

Why? No idea! I just did.

Anyway, the scarf is up and running again and I had done the first 11 rows of the first 24 row repeat after the midway point. I stopped to admire it.

Something was wrong. Surely the pattern looked a little… odd?

Well. There are fifteen repeats in this scarf. The half way point is at seven and a half repeats, of course. Except when I began again, I began at Row 1. I had missed out half a full repeat.

I had to rip out eleven rows of cobweb weight lace.

Thank the $deity I had a lifeline in. The chances of that happening must be less than 1 in 10 for my projects.

Prescience! and a valuable lesson. Expect to see more lifelines in my work from here on.