After taking Deb’s steaking class at Estes a while back, then learning that you can extend a ribbing by cutting, picking up live stitches and knitting down, I didn’t hesitate to take scissors to one of my egregiously outsized squares.

Take that, you errant parallelogram.

I probably should have been drinking something besides green tea, because instead of realizing the live stitches option, I got a steak without the steak. In other words, the square was unraveling before my eyes.

Since we’re all about flying in the face of knitting orthodoxy these days, I grabbed a crochet hook and picked up stitches to the left of the unraveled bits and knit new border for the piece. Though it’s a bit like inserting the chocolate chips after the cookies have been in the oven, my reverse solution held. We got steak. In spite of ourselves.

You’re probably amazed by the equanimity with which this situation was dispatched. Trust me, that had this been a Dale of Norway Fair Isle instead of a 12” x 12” seed-stitch square, I would be sucking my thumb in a padded room at the state hospital.

Look for more afghan updates as the week progresses.