“Crap,” I declared, punching M lightly to get his attention, “I’ve think I’ve made a huge mistake.”

We bickered briefly about the appropriateness of punching as an attention-getting tool, reconciled, and then I showed him:

On the bright side, it appears to be winking.

I’ve been working on Gudrun Johnston’s Little Black Dress for a while now. I love it. I LOVE IT. The pattern is one of the most beautiful and intelligent things I’ve ever read, the logic and detail that have gone into its planning are fantastic. And I ballsed it up right at the first shoulder. You make the back, using a provisional cast on, then pick up stitches on either side of the provisional cast on (which now runs along the shoulders/back of neck) and knit the front panels down towards the waist. To make it elegantly shaped, you work nine rows of short rows, then three rounds of a twelve-row pattern. With me so far? Short rows, then 36 rows of pattern, then start increasing for the neckline.

Well there’s your problem!

Unless you’re me, apparently, and then you blithely (nay, merrily), work one repeat of the twelve-row pattern before charging ahead like a rutting moose into the neck increases. Yeesh. I probably made a moosey noise as I did so, which would explain the looks people were giving.

I noticed the bodice wasn’t sitting evenly, almost immediately after I joined the fronts and back for working in the round, which is at the waistline (you fold the fronts over in a simple and elegant manouvre), but put it down to the phase of the moon or something. (At least I didn’t tell myself it would block out.) And now we’re here. Three-quarters of the way through the beautiful A-line skirt, and there’s a fatal flaw in the first shoulder which, if left uncorrected, will render the finished garment unwearable.

But it will not remain uncorrected. Fear me: I have plans.