A cautionary knitting tale

This is too funny not to share. Several weeks ago I bought three skeins of autumn-colored wool boucle yarn at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival.

I wound the yarn into center-pull skeins, grabbed a pattern I liked, and knitted a gauge swatch with size 15 needles. The pattern I was using called for size 9 or 10 needles, but I wanted the boucle to knit up loose, so I figured 15's would be good. I did the math with my swatch, and for some reason decided that instead of casting on 240 stitches as the pattern (with smaller needles, remember) called for, I'd cast on 280 stitches. I did and knit merrily away. After I finished one skein, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, this may be too long, and it certainly doesn't look as though it will be wide enough - maybe I should stop now, put the stitches onto a length of waste yarn, and check it out... Nah!"

So I added the second skein. When I finished it, and was ready to knit the third skein, I thought again, "Maybe I should measure this... Nah!"

After I finished with the third and last skein, I bound off all 280 stitches, ran water to soak the shawl prior to blocking it, and looked at the ends needing to be woven in. I thought, "Perhaps I should hold this up to myself - try it on, as it were - before weaving in the ends and blocking it. Then if it's too long or looks awful I can easily rip it all out and start over... Nah. I'll just weave in these ends and block it first."

I think I must have been temporarily insane! I wove in those ends - without checking the length of the shawl - and I wove them in very well so that the ends wouldn't show. And so that they wouldn't come unraveled...EVER.

Here's the finished product:

Now I'm trying to find those blasted ends and pick them out so I can rip out and unravel the whole thing and start over!

(Update 10/11/07 : This tale has a happy ending!)