Noooooo! Made a mistake 5 rows in, and only just realised! Is there no choice but to undo EVERYTHING and start from scratch?

[SixImpossible]

Knitting a holey cardi. The yarn is randomly thick and thin, knitted on 6mm needles, so the work turns out with random thick, fluffy patches and random thin, lacy patches. It starts with a garter stitch band, and is then stocking stitch to a 1x1 rib waistband, then stocking stitch the rest of the way.

It's a very loose, uneven sort of stitch, not in any way precise-looking. I'm a slow knitter, and I've been working on it for over a month, so far.

I have finished the back and both fronts up to the armhole shaping. About to start armhole shapings, and I have just realised that I forgot to reduce after the garter stitch band at the bottom of one front. One of the fronts has still got 44st instead of 32!

Am I going to have redo the whole piece? Is there any way I can...I don't know.. do something? Turn the extra 12 stitches into part of the button band?

Help?

Is it all done in one piece up to the armhole? Does a button band get added at the end? A buttonhole band? It' a real pickle, this, because you will have issues with decreasing at the top and the neckline.

The body is in three parts: back (which I have completed, including shaping) and L and R fronts. I worked one front up to the shaping, then worked the other front up to the shaping, so that I would shape them both equally. Doh!

It's a crew neck cardi, so the will be a neckband to pick up and work across front-back-front, and then button and buttonhole bands to pick up and work the length of the fronts.

If you want it to look perfect, then I think you will have to unpick.
However, you might be able to get away with it by bunching the bigger side and stretching the smaller side when you're matching them together. It depends on how big a difference the extra stiches make in terms of inches really. With very fine yarn it might not matter so much, but with thicker yarn I suspect it would be too noticeable.

you could drop down each individual column of stitches where there should be a decrease, use a crochet hook to create the decrease where it should be and then hook back up the column. you would need to do this for each one so it would take a while, and it would be looser than its matching pair when finished. scroll down to "you missed a decrease" - you need to do this for each one

i ahve done it before and it was fine after blocking, but it was very fiddly and you couldn't leave it halfway through really

If it is only one of the front pieces you will just have unravel it. 12 stitches on 6mm needles will be really noticable in the finished cardi which would be a shame as you have worked so hard.

Bite the bullet. Yarn is too expensive for you to be less than a perfectionist. Sorry.

Yes, if it is a matter of just unpicking one front I would go for it. Otherwise it will always be imperfect. Do a bit of frogging (ripit,ripit)

I wonder whether I could make the button band on the other side an inch deeper, so that the sides end up the same width overall.

But what would that do to the overall fit?

The yarn is a pain to frog. The thin bits aren't a problem, but the fat bits catch.

This is the pattern.

hmm

i think it will be a bit skew-whiff however you do it

which side is the larger now, the one will have the buttons or the one that will have the holes?

Nice pattern. Worth the extra effort. See if you can get some elp from someone to hold the part while you are frogging, so that the can tug at it a bit while you roll the ball back up.

I pinned it out and measured: making the smaller side larger to match would make the whole front 6cm wider than designed. That's nearly two dress sizes. Too much. So I frogged.

Gah

Oh well, call it character-building

It'll be worth it in the end

Well done Right decision. It will knit back up quicker because you have 'lost' 12 stitches if that's any comfort. And you will feel rightfully smug.