Riddle Me This

While flipping through channels the other night, my husband and I came across a movie called Fermat's Room. It's a Spanish film about a group of mathematicians in a contrived situation in which they have to solve logic puzzles to save their lives. Um-hmm. I know James Cameron is not going to have his ticket sales record toppled by a movie like this, but I was intrigued enough to set down my knitting so I could read the subtitles. Most of the puzzles were classics that I've heard before, but a few were new to me.

I've always liked little challenges like that...at least in the abstract. It's a little less fun when I come across a puzzle in my knitting. I picked up my Seascape Stole again but got stuck on a particular row. I kept coming up with an extra stitch, throwing the pattern off. I read and reread the chart; I read and reread my knitting. I couldn't find it. I must have tinked and reknit the row a half dozen times. My brain flashed back to the movie for a second and I thought to myself that if my life depended on solving this puzzle, I'd surely be lost. But of course, my life did not actually depend on it. In an inspired move, I hit upon the right solution: I went to sleep! I realized my brain was overly tired and needed to be reset.


What a difference a night of rest made! The next morning, I clearly saw that I had inadvertently added a stitch on the previous row and it was an easy fix. Onward!