In Which Lightening Strikes Twice

I have this vision. In my imagination I knit along, counting all my stitches correctly, picking up the occasional dropped stitch quickly and with ease, transitioning through a pattern with grace. Serene. Competent. The opposite of frazzled and frustrated. No berating myself. No calling myself names. No muttered cursing. The Baby Surprise jacket is not going to be the project that sees that vision fulfilled.

I could learn to dislike my learning curve. It's attacked the Baby Surprise Jacket. Or the Baby Surprise Jacket attacked it. Again. Corresponding place, same type of error. When I was decreasing, I shifted my diagonal to the right. Now that I'm increasing, I've shifted it to the left. My frustration is your learning opportunity. This time I remembered to take pictures.

The original mistake.

The repair in progress, with the second set of needles in place and multiple coil-less pins managing the various ladders.

Which eventually leads to ta-da and merrily I roll along.

We'll ignore the first repair that left me with yarn stretched to its limit and 3 more stitches than I should have had. We won't discuss the awakening of my competitive instinct when Diane came by for coffee with a completed BSJ while I was grinding my teeth over having to put my newly learned skill into practice way before I wanted to. We'll just keep clinging to that vision, once the after-image from the lightning has cleared.