Can't Win 'em All...

Cast on a new project today, completely ignoring all my WIPs. (My reasoning? It's too hot to knit an alpaca sweater! .... completely ignored the two sock WIPs.)

It's Ysolda Teague's Not-So-Tiny Slippers from Whimsical Little Knits 3. (Random side note: Has anyone else noticed that while the patterns in this book are very fun, the book itself smells a lot like funky Play-Doh?)
Anyways, I seriously messed this slipper up.
Like so bad.
There are the horrible gaping short row holes.

There are the I-don't-really-know-what-happened-heres along the side.

And all of that would have been forgiven if I had just gotten up off my butt for 10 minutes to look up how to do kitchner in garter stitch.

Instead I just flipped it inside out and worked a regular kitchner, leaving this terrible seam at the bottom.
So yeah.

My "practice slipper" is done.

 What did I learn?
1) Don't be lazy- go double check that you're doing your short rows right. Especially after you do a few rows of them and think they look "funny."
2) Don't be lazy- learn the new technique!
and 3) Ysolda really is a flippin' genius: I never would have come up with this on my own! I especially love how the slipper is picked up from a length of I-cord. ^_^

I'm starting to think maybe this slipper disaster served a purpose: perhaps it is a lightning rod?
After all, every time I've tried to knit a sweater with my current WIP's yarn, something goes terribly awry. This time, however, everything is just sailing along. Maybe I had to screw something up miserably, and it might as well have been a completely unrelated object. I hope it's that. I offer it up to the knitting gods, I humble myself, and I will go back to knitting my sweater.