I missed the Christmas deadline for my shrug. By a long shot. It's not even finished yet. In fact every time it grows something goes wrong and it shrinks again - I have to unknit the damn thing.
At one point I even got up to 51 rows. Then - on Christmas morning, no less - I realised I'd done all the lacework for the armhole shaping wrong. You have to cast off 5 stitches at each end and then decrease by 1 at each end, keeping in pattern. So I dutifully cast off and decreased while counting in the number of reduced stitches on the chart. It was only later that I realised that if I'm decreasing at each end, I have to count in at each end. Which explained why I kept ending each row in the wrong place.
A variety of cock-ups followed - dropped stitches, following the chart wrong, ending up with the wrong number of stitches. I've knitted and unknitted the same 10 or so rows that I could have knitted several shrugs, had I only done it right.
At the moment I'm back down to 41 rows. I have the requisite 91 stitches. And I'm leaving it there. I surrender. Right this minute I'm waving a metaphorical white flag.
But note: I'm not frogging. I'm taking a break. I need some space between me and the shrug before I can go back and do it proud. So I'm returning to my much easier jumper for the time being. As for the shrug - watch this space.
