What's wrong with this picture? Or, paging M.C. Escher

I was so wound up (so to speak) in the gauge of my stranded hat that I neglected an even more fundamental principle of knitting. Namely, to pull back occasionally and look at what you're doing. I mean, like the whole thing. Take the time to examine what you're working on from a broader view. And if possible, show it to someone else. (It's like proofreading -- the more you look at something the less likely you'll notice glaring errors while someone else will see them right away.)

It's all too easy to get so wrapped up in your stitches (oof, another bad pun), that you fail to see what's going on with your project as a whole.

So, what's wrong with this picture? Enhanced for your viewing pleasure:

About a third of the way down, you can see where the pattern is interrupted and then starts again -- look for the checked zig-zags. I didn't notice it until I was showing it to Jennifer. Just as she was saying, "Oh you must have this pattern memorized by now," I noticed what I'd done. And I know exactly how I did it. Here's the chart:


There are two rows that alternate one brown, one gray and begin with a brown stitch. Instead of working the following row on row 2 of the chart (2 browns, 1 gray, etc.), I took up at row 9 (one gray, 1 brown, 2 grays, etc.).

It's amazing how far you have to knit sometimes before seeing a mistake, especially doing colorwork. I could've left it alone, as I'm sure it wouldn't have been noticeable to anybody else but me. But I would always see it. So, as with most major mistakes, rather than ignore the situation, I stop where I am, yank the needles, and go back. In this case, I was able to fairly easily find the last correct row of colorwork and weave smaller needles through those stitches, making it less challenging than it could've been to rip back.

Before:


After:

Now the work is back on the circulars again. I started knitting along happily, all proud of myself. And you know what? I found myself starting from row 9 again.

Dammit!