the dreaded clap, or, this could end in tears

i've had a few UFOs sitting around for a while. i decided that i would finish a few things before i started anything new. last spring i happily cast on my second clapotis using hand maiden's silk maiden yarn in lily pond (50-50 silk and wool). being heavily pregnant at the time, i was unable to concentrate on anything for more than 5 minutes. i shoved the clapotis in a plastic bag at the bottom of my knitting basket.

i picked it up again in early january. i love the pattern (kate is a genius) and as much as i love knitting it, i've been trying to speed through it so i could move onto something new. knitting while watching season 4 of 24 on dvd is perfect. watching jack bauer rush around makes me knit furiously.

i kept glancing at my yarn to guage when it was time to start decreasing. Stephanie has written about the knitting void where it seems like you aren't making any progress no matter how much you knit and then suddenly you are two inches past where you need to be. I felt like i wasn't making a dent in the ball and then suddenly realized that there was no way i could do the 80ish rows of decrease before running out.

of course putting in a lifeline never occurred to me. why would it? that ball was lasting forever. ha! so i pulled out the tapestry needle and some contrasting yarn and carefully threaded a lifeline just above my last dropped stitch. that should be enough, right? ha! i frogged, i picked up the stitches, i started decreasing.

two days ago i finally admitted to myself that there was still no way i had enough yarn to decrease properly. and there it sits on the coffee table while images of hourglass sweaters dance in my head. there's nothing for it. i have to frog it down at least one, maybe two, repeats. eep. of course, i love the dropped stitch action so i pull my ladders all the way down.

can i pick up the dropped stitch a couple rows before the doomed repeat(s)? or do i have to one-by-one fish up the stitches. i think i'd rather frog the whole thing and start over; the clapotis is just about as long as i am. i am going to try frogging two repeats, picking up the dropped stitches a couple rows below the repeat and see what happens.

i realize that the preceding paragraphs do not make any sense if you haven't knit a clapotis. sorry about that. i'm really just typing out loud.

two blogger notes: why does blogger not have a spell check? and why can't i put images just anywhere in my post? why do they show up at the top of the post? i know enough html to insert an image tag and yet...hmmm.