Lunar Effect?

I had a bit of problem with the front of Fisherman's Pullover yesterday.  It was started over a few times and there exists a piece of paper with several different ways of adding up the stitches on my needles and what's needed to create the cables of the front.  But the worst of all had to be that the stitches worked out the way they should for the back of the sweater a few weeks ago.  (For the first two-thirds of this sweater the front and back are exactly the same.)

The whole time I was trying to make 74 = 82; even though I am quite confident only 82 = 82.  During this time of trying to accomplish the impossible frustration was high, perhaps some unladylike words were uttered and a new sport of doing The Angry Tink was created until the instructions were reread.  There between the 1" of ribbing and the details for setting up the cables was one sentence.  "Evenly distribute 8 stitches to bring the total number of stitches to 82."   It was then I finally realized only 82 would in fact equal 82.

So of course since there is a full moon tonight, June 12 and tomorrow is Friday, June 13 my paranoia took over.  Perhaps my inability to figure out that 74 will never equal 82 had to do with the full moon effect on knitting behavior.  Sure that must be it.  So I thought I'd check into other times where I have recorded on this blog the whole befuddled mode when I became completely flummoxed by a knitting situation and see if perhaps the dates correlate to full moons.

	2011	2012	2013	2014
January		Rabbit U	-	-
February		-	Wavelength scarf	Baby blanket
March		Bear 900	-	-
April		-	Shingles	-
May		Wall flower hanging	Sunnyside sweater	-
June		-	-	Fisherman’s Pullover Front
July		-	Tangerine Baby Kimono
August		Dad ill	-
September		Wall flower hanging	-
October	-	Wall flower hanging	Western Hood/Scissors
November	-	-	-
December	-	Tea cozy	-

This chart does not definitively support my theory; 19 of the 33 months listed were fine during the full moon and of the trying incidents listed above, only 12 had to do with knitting.  Additionally as I reviewed the list it is at the time of the full moon a mistake is located, not created, which completely disavows my preconceived notion.

So I thought I'd look to see if the overall theory of the full moon creating lunacy holds up in the scientific world.  (If you'd like to read the sources click here and here.  The first link is from a university website that lists plenty of scientific research, the second is Cecil Adam's Straight Dope article about the topic.)  These apparently credible links give support to the idea that correlation does not equal causation meaning a correlation of busier emergency rooms or increased public drunkenness on the evening of a full moon does not on its own prove the full moon is the cause.   Although the two might relate, the cause of this relationship is unknown.  Or put another way, some sort of illogical leap has to be made to consider the relationship to be causal.  It's something like thinking, wanting and hoping 74 will equal 82.  No lunar effect here, just sloppy pattern reading and an undefinable stubbornness to do it the way one thinks it should be rather than the way it must be done.

Thanks Wikipedia for visually helping to make my point.  

Finally it does need to be said, once one gives into only 82 equaling 82 the entire knitting process improves so dramatically it is hard to describe.