Let's say I'm trying to do something for the first time, like make a slip knot.  Let's say I do it perfectly on my first try.  The next time I need to make a slip knot, I may freeze up and not remember how.

Now let's say I messed that first slip knot up.  Let's say I struggled with making that slip knot for 10 minutes.  I kept making mistakes and consulting the instructions.  I *really* had to concentrate and understand the mechanics and physicality of a slip knot before I was able to make it.  The next time I need to make a slip knot, I'm going to nail it.  In fact, I'll never struggle with a slip knot again.

This is how I learn.  I know this about myself.  So much so that when I do something easily the first time, sometimes I will go back and do it again a couple times the wrong way on purpose.

So last night I had to run out to the cafe for an hour.  I grabbed my needles and some yarn and thought I might start some gloves for myself because my store-bought gloves just sprang a hole in the first finger of one hand.  When I got to the cafe, my first thought was, "Crap.  There is no way in hell I will be able to do the cast on I want to do."

But I was wrong.

I remembered FROM MEMORY how to do the long tail tubular cast on for 1x1 rib (learned from this Ysolda Teague video).  When I was making the girl gloves, I watched that video with needles in hand about 100 times.  Learning, practicing, memorizing, absorbing what I was doing.  And, of course, doing it incorrectly (even completely backwards) over and over and over again.  I frogged those cuffs at least 20 times.  Each.

The video shows the cast on for a specific pattern of Ysolda's that starts with a purl stitch, but I know the technique so well now that I was able to slowly think my way through it and figure out which wrap to start with (since I wanted a knit first) and after only one false start, I had my 38 stitches cast on.

Something looked a little weird, but the tubular cast on often looks a little weird until you get a couple rows in.  I knit for an hour in that cafe.  So happy to finally be crafting after a week of feeling under the weather.  And then, as soon as I got home, a thought popped into my head.  I knew what I did wrong.

My first row knits are twisted.

The knits in the first tubular row must be knit into the back loop or they will be twisted.  I'd forgotten that part.  I will never forget it again.

And, honestly, I'm not mad.  I'm not frustrated.  I find it sort of funny.  It's almost a relief because *now* I know I have the long tail tubular cast on for 1x1 ribbing committed to memory.  For sure.