Broken

I'm at a loss- I don't know what to do. I think my knitting mojo is broken. Like super, mega, totally broken... It's not that I don't WANT to knit... oh god I want to knit so badly, it's that when I DO knit... I fail. Epically.

When last we last left this blog I was suffering a blow on a decrease gone awry. I made myself two promises after trying to soothe my battered knitting ego. 1) I would rip back the sock but not knit it in Maui and 2) I would allow myself something new and fun to knit in Maui. (We were in Maui last week.) And so, one day during a nap time, I had a glass of wine, sat on the lanai, looked at my view...

and ripped back the sock. I achieved zen- or close to it. I frogged those stitches carefully to where I believe the error was, counted the correct number of stitches, knit one row to get me back on track and then I tucked the sock away pleased with myself that I corrected the issue and could start fresh when I got home.

We came home on Sunday, and by Sunday evening, I took advantage of a sleepy/early to bed baby and I decided to revisit the Neubula sock and begin again. I knit the entire cable decrease section over. I counted the stitches again. I was 5 short. FAIL. I don't know where I have gone wrong, but the only answer seems to be rip back to the HEEL and begin again. *sigh Behold Nebula, before I frog it for time #2. (I'm going to need a lot more than a glass of wine!)

So yes- Nebula is killing me- but at least I had my new and exciting project to turn to. Spring Fling in my shiny new Madelintosh was the perfect sock to take with me to Maui. A picot cuff, a pretty lace design, it had everything I wanted in a perfect distraction project. Except there were two problems; 1) by the 3rd pattern repeat I was frustrated that it looked nothing like the pattern in the picture and 2) it was knitting up huge. Instead of stopping myself, admitting there was an issue, I soldiered on.

It wasn't until I came home did I really start to second guess myself. Trust me when I say that this sock, while pretty looks nothing like it's finished picture and would fit loosely on the ankle of an elephant. I mentioned to the MiL that I was going to email the pattern author and let her know that something has gone terribly awry in her pattern publishing and she should fix the pattern. MiL agreed that a) sock was enormous and b) the stitch pattern looked wrong. It wasn't until MiL offered to look at the pattern to find where the author went wrong did the real problem present itself. I had been knitting this stitch pattern as a 4 row repeat. It's actually a 12 row repeat! The remaining EIGHT ROWS were on the next page. DUH. FAIL. So guess what I frogged this afternoon? We also agreed I had to go down a needle size also to get a better fit.

Two projects. Two failures. My knitting ego is suffering. I don't know why I suck at knitting right now- but I need a WIN in the worst way. I don't know what to do next. I can tell you that I'm not going to attempt the sweater... that requires genuine thinking and attention paying and apparently those are two things I am not good at for the moment. I could pull out the baby dots blanket and try and revive that? I just need something that I cannot, no matter how hard I try, screw up. Not even Don Music and his version of "Row Row Your Boat" can save me now.

And so- because there is going to be some time before we see something finished on this blog again- I will show you my favorite picture from Maui, which has nothing to do with knitting but may be a reason I'm not paying the closest of attention these days:

He's a cute distraction, isn't he?