After finishing the body of one of the sweaters I’ve been bragging about lately, appeared a ‘thing’ that completely took me by surprise, I did not see it coming at all. It was a classic case of thinking I knew what the pattern wanted me to do, rather than actually reading the pattern, and I’ve gone ahead and ignored half of the chart, just like that. However I was so pleased with the result, personally I thought that my mistake actually made the sweater even prettier, for me, and in my last newsletter’s musings this spurred me into a discussion about ‘when is a mistake really a mistake?’. My conclusion was that a mistake is a question of definition, it is all in the eye of the beholder. What is an eyesore to some, might be a beauty mark for others.

As an after thought, while writing that newsletter, it struck me that it might be encouraging (or funny) to hear each other’s ‘best mistake story’, and I asked my readers, that is you guys, if anybody would have liked to share their story – and oh my – you guys don’t disappoint do you? As promised, I have compiled a little collection of the stories I received – and so with this, I give to you the beautiful mistakes made by YOU the beautiful knitters.

Hello Maya – ages and ages ago – maybe 60 years – my best friend from school and I were ‘trendy’ beatniks who both really wanted a string bag!! I was the only one who could crochet – so I started the task with no idea how the thing would be achieved!! We bought a ball of plain ordinary string and I did the cast on and started the hooking – did a few rows and thought maybe a check on the size might be a good idea! I unwound the bundle of rows – it stretched from one end of my Mum and Dad’s sitting room to the other so was about 25 feet long – So my friend,Pat, and I just laughed about enough to wake the neighbours and then I started again!! Got it right the second time but I have never forgotten how much we laughed!!
Hope you laughed too!
Jane

I’m a newby too knitting and bumbling along so it feels. 
I have a liking to vests waistcoats and tank tops and thought I’d knit one whilst away on holiday,in the hope I may wear it as we were away for three weeks. 
I set to and started on a Lily Kate France pattern The Ribblesdale waistcoat. Brioche stitch!!! Never done it before but thought it would be an opportunity to stretch my ever learning skill. 
Joined a SUMMERKAL which I thought was cute as lots of people were doing different patterns from her range. People were chugging along mid way through their patterns before I’d even got past the armholes but I wasn’t going to let comparing put me off. 
I photoed my project sent it on to the KAL (which if you knew me, that in itself was an achievement) said how I was enjoying knitting and chuffed with the look of the waistcoat so far, only to be told “it might be my eyes but I don’t think that’s brioche!!!” I was gutted I double checked the videos and yes the fellow KAL was right!!!! I’d made up my own stitch 🤣. 
My partner said don’t pull it back it looks good but I had this voice in me saying you’ll never learn if you don’t correct it. 
So I pulled it back and started again. No I didn’t get to wear it on my holiday but I did learn the hard way how to do brioche. By the way I now love brioche, I’m now just finishing it off with a tubular bind off which is blowing my mind but I’m getting the hang of it.  The project is only small but it’s been mighty in its teachings. I love it. 
The newby knitter
Maggie 🙏🏻

Hi Maya
Enjoyed reading today’s newsletter (as always!) and brought to mind a mistake on sweater recently finished. A pattern highlighted by you a while back and although was put to one side halfway through am really pleased with end result- lovely and soft and cosy to wear. Realised quite a way through that I had done two lines of the blue instead of the one after the bottom ribbing- but decided it sort of looked like a separate band around the bottom as if integrating ribbing and main body!! So decided to leave it. No way did I want to frog those rows of mohair anyway!! Now it’s an individual interpretation?!
Eliz-anne

Hi Maya! 
My biggest knitting mistake was when I ended up with 10 extra stitches for one of the sleeves of a really complex colourwork jumper, I still have no idea how that happened! Fixing it would have meant ripping back the whole body, so… I didn’t. Threw in some sneaky decreases and honestly, you can’t even tell! In my current knit, a little short sleeved top that I cast off last night there was a “mistake” as well, followed the pattern exactly but that meant while the back was perfect due to short rows, at the front neckline was the very start of a little eyelet repeat right under the ribbing, and honestly it just looked like holes. Pattern didn’t warn this could happen, but to be fair if I had read ahead enough I could have figured out it would, sometimes you need to second guess patterns a bit too. Sewed them together carefully and you can hardly tell (unless you knit and know your stuff and even then it’s subtle!) and I’m so much happier with it this way, would have really annoyed me as it was. 
Alena

Looking forward to hearing your mistakes. My biggest mistake in the last couple of years was to carefully calculate gauge for a Lovenote, see that by my calculations I would need to knit an XL for my definitely S/M mother, decide that the fabric looked right and that I should just go for it…and producing two of an envisaged trinity of lovenotes (for me, my mum and my daughter, all with the same red base yarn but different shades of mo)(oh gosh and now I remember it I decided in February that all three should be finished for my Mum’s 70th birthday in June, lol) that were TOO SMALL. I’m hanging on to the small adult one as my daughter should grow into it in a year or two. Perhaps by then I’ll have gotten over my anger with myself and made two more….
Helen

Thank you for the newsletter. Great as always. 
I used to stress over mistakes – frogging back to the start. Until I did one of Stephen Wests MKAL. In the related YouTube he talks about embracing mistakes. If you’re a stitch out add one or vice versa  and that no one will ever notice. Makes me realise that odds are I won’t notice when I’m finished. Def the best advice 🙂
Wendy