To unravel or not to unravel

Recently, I've notice that we don't have that many blankets in the apartment. It's getting colder and I'm feeling more and more like cocooning while listening to Christmas music. Knitting in a nest of blankets seems to me like a must of the season!

Most people have a legacy of blankets at home. You know, that quilt your grand'ma made you or the old throw that as always been around in your family... we mysteriously don't have any of these. Well, I have a blanket that my mom crocheted for me, maybe 15 years ago, but it only fits a single size bed. As for Le Barbu (aka my boyfriend) he does have a large velvet-like blanket but he often uses it in his office. That's why I came to the conclusion that we need more blankets. I searched through the massive amount of pattern on ravelry for a while and I finally chose this one: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/boldly-colored-plaid-afghan

I started it, planning to make it larger than in the pattern. Instead of seven stripes of nine squares I'm probably going to knit ten stripes of thirteen squares. This way, I will obtain a blanket big enough to cover our queen size bed.

So far, I really like the pattern. It's fairly easy to knit and to memorize since the pattern is created by only four rows of knitted stitches. Normally, by knitting all the stitches, you would obtain garter stitch, but the secret of the alveolar texture you find on this blanket is that every other row is composed of "knit 1, knit 1 below" repeats. This means you knit one and then you knit the second one by inserting your needle through the centre of the stitch below the next stitch. I like this idea because it's nearly as easy as a normal knitted stitch but, because it gives a lot of texture to the afghan, I believe it will make it really hot and comfy.

Sadly, after I had nearly finished my first stripe, I realized my first square was longer then the others. After a look on the pattern, I understood that I was one pattern repeat short for every square except for the first one! That is when the ultimate question stuck me: To unravel or not to unravel?

This is where I was at when I unravel 80% of it. See the nice texture!

You see, projects without any mistakes are to me, the exception. Sometimes because I choose to leave the mistakes there, sometimes because I didn't even see it before the garment was blocked. The reality is, when I think my mistake won't affect the final look of the piece, or when I know that no one except me will see the difference, I might very well leave it there (especially if I notice it only a couple rows later). However, if my mistake is going to affect either the shape or the global look of the work, I will unravel the problematic part. That was the case of my first blanket stripe. That's why I decided to unravel it, because the squares were uneven and it would have shown against the other stripes. I'm always a little sad when I unravel something because I know how much time I've put in knitting it. But on the long run, I know I will be happier with the final result and so, it's worth the couple hours more to knit this stripe again especially considering the lifespan of a hand-knitted blanket.