In which panic descends

Two weeks to go -

except that really the gift countdown is set to one week for one important person and
one day for two more.

One of those very urgent two gifts is ready to go, and the other needs another 40 minutes or so, but the one week deadline is panic-inducing.

Here is what happened: I wasn't watching the calendar and was working away happily on two things I'm not gifting until December 27th. Then on Friday, I realized I had to have a Lazy Day Lace Shawl ready to give on Monday the 21st. By which I mean, not just finished but blocked and dried. So really, it has to be done by about 8pm on Sunday the 20th.

Technically, this worked out to a very do-able three hours' knitting a day when I started it on Saturday, but on Sunday night I realized I had made a serious and highly noticeable error in row 12.

ROW TWELVE.

Which I then continued making for another 5 rows.

How this is possible - it's my own design, and I've knit this particular lace stitch on a near-daily basis since September - I don't know, but I did it. And I had to rip it all out, and today I will have to start again, except that I can't until I've finished Urgent Gifts #1 and 2, and then I will have to pause again midweek to do Marginally Less Urgent Gifts #3 and 4, scheduled for delivery on Friday.

And that, my friends, is where the wrench is positioned.

Because one of those two is ready, and the other an irretrievable disaster unless my iron and muslin-for-steaming turn out to have magical powers, and I almost certainly have to think of something else to give in its place. Candy Wrapper Scarflet springs to mind - I can do it and block it in an evening - but do I go with another teal, or with the pale pink in my stash, neither of which is ideal for this particular person?

Of course I can always get around the worst of the problem by presenting the other half of the shawl gift with a promissory note for the rest in a week or two, but it's so awful, isn't it, to be knitting for Christmas well past New Year's?

sigh.

I know every other crafty person is in much the same overextended boat though, and that's something.