Frogging; Knitting Therapy

The worst enemy to a knitter is themselves.  I am harshly critical of my own work, yet I am oblivious to mistakes made by other knitters.  Not only am I not looking for them but I really don't care if they made a mistake(s) as long as the whole piece looks nice.  So why do my mistakes bother me so much?

They bother me because not only do I know they are there, and exactly where they are, but also because it ruins the piece for me.  It will always be flawed to me.  This has pushed me to figure out how to correct mistakes several rows down so I can fix them as soon as I find them.  But I will no longer hesitate to just frog a piece and start fresh.  I remember when I picked up knitting again after more then ten years away and could barely remember how to cast off.  Imagine my frustration at knitting a sweater in the round for the first time and getting a twist in it; not once, not twice, but three times in a row.  And of course you never discover this after just one or two rows.  Frogging was a huge thing after struggling to get everything to work.  But I always felt so much better afterwards because I was once again moving forward with the project.  I also didn't have this large mistake hanging over my head and weighing me down.

Frogging has become a form of therapy for a project that just isn't going right.  I pull out the needles and just pull on that working thread.  I can frog something quite quickly sending hours or even days worth of work back onto the ball.  And while there is some initial pain, the relief of moving forward even if I am going backwards is a much better reward.  If I really think about it, I always know that frogging is the best solution for a major problem, whether I am starting over completely or just frogging back to a better point, my brain always knows it is the right thing to do.  My heart sometimes tries to rebel but I just can't justify stopping a project because I don't like how it is going or because of a mistake.  I don't need a WIP with an error hanging over my head.

Design work has really upped the ante on my frogging rate.  So many times, a pattern that seems good on paper doesn't make it past more then a few rows before I have to frog it back and rework the pattern to account for shape, or stitches I didn't count.  I am now quite zen about frogging, maybe a little too zen.  What's your take on frogging?