five rows too far

So, even though I live in the Land of Hot, I've been pretty good about not letting my knitting skills fall by the wayside by knitting something each year. I've made baby hats aplenty that I've sent off to friends, a cute shrug for Sadie, mittens for my bigger kid, but 2012 was the year that I was going to knit something for myself! 

I was only five rows away from being finished the Ruffle My Feathers scarf when tragedy struck. I'd just finished counting the stitches between the repeats, and then I went to gently shift all of the stitches on my circular needles over to the left, and this happened:

 

But that is actually not supposed to happen! The cable is NOT supposed to come out of the needle tips! I swear I wasn't being violent with my knitting needles; I treat them with a lot of care because I can't really replace any of my Knitpicks gear here in Vietnam! 

Anyway, the result was 30+ live stitches , and though I tried to pick them all up, I saw that I was in a losing battle and conceded. I'm not experienced enough to be able to fix up the lacework. I'm so bummed out, though, because I was only five rows away from being completely finished with this scarf!

It would have been pretty, huh?