Ene's Shawl - to frog or not to frog

I am knitting Ene’s Scarf as part of a Ravelry knit along. And I’d like to quit.

The scarf starts with a horrible 375 stitch cast on! Yuck. It took what seemed like forever but I carefully counted out the cast on stitches, placing a marker after every 25 stitches. When I was done I double checked, so going into the first row I knew I had the correct number of stitches. The first row is full of double decreases. Again, I counted carefully, placed markers after every pattern repeated and at the end of the row checked carefully that there were the same number of markers on each side of the center stitch. Everything worked out.

The scarf begins with a 22 row lower edge in a simple diamond pattern. The rows are so long, it took quite a lot of knitting before I could see the pattern taking shape. No instant gratification here. Eventually I had the 22 rows knitted without too much unknitting. I counted it out as I went and knew when I’d made a mistake in time to correct it within the row. But with a 375 stitch row, if I discovered a problem because the count didn’t work out when I arrived at the center stitch, and the problem was toward the beginning of the row, there was a lot of unknitting to get back to fix it.

When I got to the end of the diamond border I realized I was one stitch off on each side of the center stitch. It was perfectly symmetrical. I’d made the same mistake on both sides. I think I missed a decrease on either side of the center stitch about 8 rows back. It looked fine, wasn’t throwing the pattern off so I decided to fix it in the very straightforward 10 row chart that followed. This chart is 9 rows of garter stitch with a yarn over knit 2 together row in between. However, there were also some decreases at the beginning and end of the rows. As simple as the second chart was, I made more errors and had 2 extra stitches on one side and 1 extra on the other. I’ll blame it on the long rows again. By the time I’d get to the end of the row, I’d forgotten what I’d planned when I began the row. Fortunately, these are the rows in which errors can be compensated for without throwing the pattern off and I ended chart 2 with the right number of stitches on both sides of the center stitch.

You’d think I’d be eager to go on to chart 3 and finish this shawl. The rows are getting shorter. I’m down to 313 stitches from the original 375. Chart 3 continues for the bulk of the shawl, the rows getting shorter and shorter all the while. So, once I get the hang of the new pattern, finishing should be easier than what I’ve done so far. In fact some knitters have called it boring.

So, why am I not eager to keep going? I don’t like the fact that I compensated for mistakes instead of correcting them. And I’m not sure I like my yarn. Yes, I know a lace shawl always looks like a crumpled mess before it is blocked. And other knitters have used the same yarn and been happy. I know this yarn will make a warm cozy scarf when it’s done. But the real problem is, I really don’t like a bottom up triangle shawl. The long lower edge is just so unruly I’m not convinced about the finished product.

I’m not going to quit! The way I see it, my choices are to frog it all and start over in another yarn or stick it out and finish this one. It would probably go much easier the second time around and I do have some beautiful slightly variegated merino lace that would be perfect for this pattern. But I really don’t want to cast on those 375 stitches all over again. I guess I’ll take a break and then later today, lay what I’ve already done out flat, pin and try to see what the yarn will look like blocked, make sure my mistakes really aren’t visible, and decide what to do next.