In Which Our Heroine Ponders The Benefits of Starting Over

Isn’t this a lovely-looking bit of shawl knitting?

This is the “Promise Me” Shawl by Boo Knits, from her In Love Collection. My mother found this gorgeous gradient and wasn’t sure what to do with it. She admired my own Promise Me, and I offered to knit her one because she is my mother and she adores everything knitted I’ve ever made for her.

However.

I was almost 8 rows into Repeat 3 of the Lace Pattern (which you can knit as many times as you like to expand the body of the shawl) when I realized that I wasn’t going to have enough yarn to knit both that and the edging. Since I didn’t feel like playing yarn chicken, I started tinking back, stitch by stitch, carefully tracking my rows so that I could start the edging at the right place.

Around Row 6, I dropped a stitch. Seriously dropped. Through several rows of yarnovers and decreases.

(Dropped Stitch Not Pictured Because It Was Too Terrible For Sensitive Knitters’ Eyes)

At that point, I had a choice. I could either struggle and try going beyond my expertise to either figure out how to pick up the stitch or hold it until I could tink back to that point, or I could undo the whole thing and start again.

I ripped it out (gently) last night and started over this morning.

As I began the process of casting on for the second time, I thought about how beneficial starting over can be. In this case, I have lost nothing but my own time, and I still don’t think that was truly lost. I’m back in the rhythm of this pattern, I know I’m going to have enough yarn to finish it, and it will still look gorgeous when it’s finished. I feel like the first attempt was a rough draft, and now I have a plan that I know will work. Uncertainty has been replaced with certainty, and I have gained both experience and practice.

There are many other times in life when this choice applies: Fix it, or start over? The correct answer depends on your priorities and your state of mind, as well as what’s healthy for you. Just because you’ve put time into something already doesn’t mean that you have to keep going as you are. You can either go back and fix things, or, if that’s not possible, you can make a fresh start – whatever that looks like to you.

I’m keeping this thought firmly in mind as we end 2022 and look forward to 2023. May it bring hope to your heart as it has to mine.