aaaaarrgh.

Well, it would appear that apparently I do not in fact know how to pick up a dropped stitch in garter. Even when (or perhaps especially when) every row is a different color.

argh.

So I was knitting away this weekend on this scarf when as I was moving my stitches around the needles, my hand slipped and off went one of them, and because I'd pulled it a bit, it went down a couple of rows right away. Curses. So I dutifully got out my crochet hook and tried my best at picking up that stitch. But I was totally mystified. I got out my books...I went online seeking instruction...and I still couldn't get it. And I consider myself a competent knitter? Sheesh. So after a very frustrating half-hour or so (during which time I hollered at my poor husband who happened to say something at just the wrong time--sorry sweetie!) I decided to run a "life line" through a few rows down (which actually ended up being quite a few rows down since I'd managed to make the dumb thing "run" a bit) and pulled out the knitting. This was after I threw it across the room.

The second-to-worst part about this (the worst is the fact that I have discovered I can't pick up stitches) is that I don't even really like this scarf anymore, and I would have given up on it a while ago if it weren't for the fact that every row is its own length of yarn that could not have been saved if I decided to scrap the project. So I decided to soldier on and finish the thing, and then this happens. Hence the throwing it across the room.

But there's a happy ending. Even though I went back about 12 rows (and that's saying something considering there are I think over 200 stitches per row) during a rather bad movie we watched on Saturday night I got nearly all of it reknitted and am on the last row. Yay. Oh, I forgot the other painful part of this whole thing... I was on the next-to-last row when I dropped the stitch. ARGH. But it's all over now...if I can just get that last row knit and bound off, then I'll be a happy camper.