Fourth Time Charm???

 A week ago, I was finally ready to start another lace project.  After the two years of intricate Woods Edge Shawl, I took a little break.  I worked on smaller, simpler probjects.  Until last week.  There is a process.  I look at a few different yarns that I might want to work with next.  Then I look at potential projects.  Then I try to match yarns with project.  Then I start the whole process again, just in case.  Finally, I picked.  

I cast on, stalled after only a few rows, ripped out, and started over.  Then I cast on, stalled after a few more rows than before, ripped out and started over.  Then I cast on, stalled at 21 rows, and ripped out.  

Sigh.  Other people have successfully completed this pattern.  Lots of people.  This was obviously user error, but I have no idea what I was doing wrong.  Somehow, I would end up with a half dozen of extra stitches.  

So I went back to Ravelry.  Surely there is another pattern that I can find, right?  I so searched my Favorites and my Queue.  I found one that might work.  I also found an adjustable pattern that would work well with a different yarn that I rejected last week because the pattern I picked wasn't adjustable.  

Then I thought that if I put markers around each repeat, I might be able to figure out what I was doing wrong with the first pattern.  

So now I am not sure if I should try a fourth time with the original yarn and the original pattern.  Or the original yarn in with the new pattern.  Or if I should (temporarily) abandon the original yarn and the original pattern, and start something completely different.  

Tonight, it is all about too many decisions.  

I will not be defeated

 I was digging in the stash to decide what my next lace project would be, when disaster struck.  

The skein was wound weird.  It was wound in vertical circles, like a stack of pancakes.  I can see the logic.  When in the tall, skinny plastic bag, you could just knit off the top, circling down the skein.  But if the yarn was removed from the plastic, or in this case, fell, it did not work at all.  The tower of wound circles toppled, the individual circles separated.  The more I tried to pick up, the more tangled everything became.  

So I started the long process in untangling the yarn.  Hours on Saturday.  Hours on Sunday.  I finally finished on Monday.  My husband rolled his eyes at me, my children mocked me, but I would not give up.  

This was a puzzle, and one that I would solve.  I would not let the yarn defeat me.  I tangle the yarn, it doesn't tangle me.  It is only failure if you give up.  Platitudes like these scrolled through my mind.