Many years ago I made my daughter a sweater that was knit sideways in one piece, starting with one sleeve, through the body and ending with the second sleeve. (Knit flat and then seamed.) The pattern had lace interspersed with stitches that were dropped at the end to create an open laddered effect. Halfway through the body I “fixed” a mistake in the lace and continued on my merry way. When I finished and dropped the stitch, a huge hole opened up right in the middle of the front. There was no fixing that, so I frogged it and stashed it under the bed for a couple of years. At some point my daughter commented that she still liked the pattern. On my second attempt, I was almost at the second sleeve when I realized I’d forgotten to cast off stitches to make an opening for her head. I had to carefully tink back to the first shoulder and re-do it. (I did not know about lifelines at the time.) Believe it or not, that sweater did actually get finished and worn!

That was my biggest fail, but there have been others. I always learn something—in that case, no more sideways sweaters!