turn, turn, turn

The best -- but most frustrating -- knitting lessons come through mistakes. Through a mistake yesterday, I think I've come to understand something I didn't know was possible in knitting.

It was such a beautiful day yesterday at Kniterati Headquarters (central division) that I took my knitting outdoors for a quick twenty-minute session. I had stopped the night before in the middle of a row. (Knitting a scarf the long way -- 360 stitches -- means I sometimes stop in the middle of a row.) I picked it back up and knit my stockingette stitch happily by the fountain. When the twenty minutes were up, I was surprised to find out that I was not yet at the end of the row. But I packed it back up and went on with my day.

Later that night I picked it back up, finished that row, and then went on to the next row. 360 knit stitches later, as I reached the end of the row, I realized something was wrong. The band of stockingette stitch was much narrower at this end than when I had started at the other end. In fact, when I counted rows, there were only 4 at this end -- but 6 at the other end!

I looked over the whole long scarf and there -- in the middle of the row, but closer to the end I had just completed -- was the place where 6 rows suddenly narrowed to 4. I couldn't figure it out. I knew you could add and subtract stitches. I didn't know you could add and subtract rows.

I unknit back to the transition point and stared at my needles. 6 rows on the left needle, now 3 rows (after unknitting) on the right. And then I realized what must have happened.

When I started knitting by the fountain that afternoon, I must have turned the work. The needle that was supposed to be in my left hand was in my right hand, and vice versa. Instead of continuing to knit onward on the row I was in the middle of (row 4), I knit back across the stitches I had just finished, back to the beginning of the row (adding row 5). Then I knit across the whole piece (adding row 6 to the first part, then merely finishing row 4 after getting to the point where I had turned it).

Earlier that evening, before I discovered my mistake, I was looking at a pattern that featured mini-bobbles. The instructions for the bobbles said "Turn." I know what turn means in tatting, but I couldn't picture it in knitting. Turn what?

Now I know. Put the needles in the opposite hands, thus turning the work over back to front, and thus working back across the stitches you just finished adding. Ta-da! I learned something, and it only took me 100 unknit stitches to do it.

Or more ... I still have to figure out how to proceed. I think I have to keep unknitting ... but I'm not sure I'll know where to stop.

Has anyone out there made this mistake before? I haven't seen it described in any of the "common mistake" tutorials I've perused (not that I've perused many, because I'm overconfident in my abilities and assume I'll never make a mistake). Or is this a novice rite of initiation I should have been expecting?