Ripping it out and Starting Over

   I was going to knit two hats for my infant grandson. I had already made one and was almost finished with the other. After I finished this hat, I had one more to knit and then I could start on The Scarf Project. I was anxious to finish. As much as I like to knit the hats, I was getting bored. There is only one stich to knit and I was afraid I was going lose my ability to do other stitches.
  There is a point in a knitted hat when you must change to double pointed needles because your circular needle is too big. I'd already done this twice so I felt pretty confident. I carefully inserted one double pointed needle into the stitches on the circular needle. I made sure all the stiches were on the needle. I did this with the other two double points. Then I carefully slipped the circular needle out. I put on my row marker and went back to knitting.
   Then things started to go wrong. I had missed a stitch and it was hanging precariously one row below where I was. I got my trusty crochet hook and put it back where it should be. I continued knitting when I noticed that my row marker fell off. I couldn't find it. I now had no idea where my rows started. I was beginning to panic. I had to do the decreases to make the top of the hat smaller and I needed to know where my starting point was. At this point I noticed that I had dropped another stich. This one was three rows down. I wasn't sure I could fix it. I got out my crochet hook and tried. It was a bit sloppy, but it gave the hat some character, right?  It would show that this was obviously hand made.
  When I picked up my work to start over I knew I was in more trouble than I could handle. Somehow I got my working yarn tangled in all the stiches I'd "fixed". I could rip out my work, but I didn't know where my starting point was because my marker had fallen off. There was nothing I could do. The hat was ruined. I had to rip all of it out and start all over again.
  I was heartbroken. I'd spent a lot of hours working on that hat. It looked really good. I didn't know when I would be able to work on it. The holidays get pretty busy and leave me with very little time to knit. He needed this hat as soon as possible. How would I ever finish?
  Angrily I unraveled all my work. The yarn coiled into knots. I pulled some of them out. There was one small knot that would not unravel. I yanked on it impatiently and broke the yarn. Now I was really upset. I had a length of yarn that I could not use. Waste! I continued to rip out all my work. I rewound it onto the ball of yarn.
  Then I began to recast the stitches. I started over again still upset. I knit as fast as I could. As I knitted,a few thoughts came into my mind. The hat didn't take that long to knit. I could get it done, but I would need to set aside time each day to work on it. I also needed to find a better way to get the stiches off my circular needle. I couldn't afford to do this again. Once my hands got too tired to knit, I put away my work and went to the computer. I searched for how to go from circular to double pointed needles.
  It didn't take long for me to find my answer. It was so easy I felt stupid for not thinking of it. You knit the stitches from one needle onto another. Simple, easy and no risk of dropping stitches.
  I felt better. I decided that if I could knit one inch per day I could get that hat done in a bit over a week. I was back in business. I was going to get this done. I may be able to start working on scarves after Christmas. I'd find some use for the waste yarn. Maybe I could crochet it and use it as a decoration on another project. Everything was going to be all right.