Falling for Tosh (and Failing a Bit)

As I think I mentioned at least once or twice before, I'm participating in the Fall for Tosh knitalong over in the Madelinetosh Lovers group on Ravelry. It started last Saturday, on the first day of fall, and runs through the end of October. That's a decent amount of time, so I thought I'd challenge myself and knit myself a sweater. I chose the Calligraphy Cardigan by Hannah Fettig, a fairly simple top-down raglan. It's a lot of knitting, but the pattern is straightforward enough that it doesn't require a whole lot of thinking and will knit up fairly quickly.

Last weekend was a mixed bag for knitting. I was awakened 4:30 a.m. on Saturday by Rainbow, who had a high fever and was complaining of a tummy ache. We actually ended up in the emergency room with her that morning (having had an appendix that wanted to explode, I was worried hers was acting up!). Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing serious (they initially diagnosed an ear infection, but then a rash appeared on Monday, and at the follow-up with the pediatrician on Wednesday, the diagnosis was changed to some sort of virus -- she's fine now), but it was a long day for all of us. While she (and the Mister) took a long nap on Saturday afternoon, I headed over to my LYS and cast on. By Sunday night, I'd finished the 7" ribbed collar and was ready to start my raglan increases.

Collar ribbing, before it all went wrong

Unfortunately, that's where I went wrong, though I didn't realize it at the time. I worked on the thing all week and finally got to the point where I was ready to separate for the sleeves last night. I counted my stitches after the last set of increases and had the right number. It was only when I was counting the sleeve stitches as I was putting them on waste yarn that I realized that I'd royally screwed up when I placed my markers. Although I had the correct number of stitches for the fronts and back, I had two additional stitches for one sleeve and was two stitches short on the other. I'm not sure if I was reading the wrong number in the pattern (entirely possible, as I made the mistake of highlighting my numbers in a yellow highlighter that's not showing up too well), if I was distracted by a whiny toddler, or if it was just my exhaustion setting in; most likely it was a combination of the three.

I briefly considered ripping back to the end of the collar, but considering that it'd taken me all week to get to this point and it was only a matter of two stitches on each sleeve, I decided I was going to make it work. For the sleeve with two extra stitches, I kept one on each end for my underarm allowance and cast on four (rather than six) stitches to bridge the gap between the front stitches and the back stitches. For the sleeve that's two stitches short, I made myself a note to pick up two additional stitches when I come back to finish the sleeves. The sleeves should still fit just fine, and I think it's pretty hard to tell a difference of two stitches when you look at the shoulders now -- I know I didn't see an issue all this time!

Consider this a public service announcement: When you're placing markers and dealing with a reasonably large number of stitches, count twice! Better yet, have someone else double check your pattern and count for you!