Cutting edge dropped stitches

Last Thursday night I went to the library knitting group, it was good to see everyone after a month hiatus over Christmas. Laurie was unhappy with her haircut (way too sort on the back), Rhonda had new boots, Helen was almost finished a knitted vest with pockets, Jennifer was working on a very complicated patterned sock. I brought my in-progress wrist warmer. Jennifer said there was an article in that day's Toronto Star (Get cosy with arm warmers) about how arm warmers or fingerless mittens are the in thing now. So I am cutting edge with my wrist warmers. I also brought the hat I made for Tristan at Christmas to show off...


This is Tristan modelling his new hat.

I was asking how to cast on stitches in the middle of a knitted project and Laurie and Jennifer demonstrated two different ways to do it. But I still didn't get it so I gave my knitting to Laurie and asked her to show me on my own knitting. She did, but in the process one of the needles (I'm using 4 double pointed needles) fell out onto the floor and when Laurie bent over to pick it up it pulled the knitting so all the stitches from that needle pulled out by several rows. We both looked at the damage in horror.

Laurie I think was particularly mortified to have done that to someone else's knitting, but I tried to assure her that the yarn was very slippery on those needles and it had already happened to me at least once with this particular project. What I didn't tell her was how bloody hard it had been to fix it the first time, and this time looked way worse. I ended up spending the rest of the session trying to pick up all the dropped stitches. I succeeded, but I made zero progress on the project during the entire session. Laurie was so apologetic. And now it looks like I won't make it to the next session so I sure hope she doesn't think it is because of her that I don't show up.