To grow up as a knitter! I may just put away that lazy knitter label and get serious (well, a little bit).
I started a guitar shaped pillow for Fletch the other day (from New Knits on the Block - full of unusual and pure fun stuff for kids), it's to be purple, green and pink - Real Punk Rock! So, along I go and get about halfway up the back of the guitar and it's looking a bit smaller than I expected. Strange. That little girl in the picture looks at least as tall as Fletch if not a bit taller, there is no way her guitar is this small. What's wrong here? Is the picture misleading? Is the pattern wrong?
This is how far I will go to avoid the extra work I need to do. This is bad.
Finally I pull out my handy metal gauge-swatch-checker. OOOOOOOOh. OK. Well forget that, Fletcher will have a smaller guitar! He won't know. (I knit about six more rows) It's bugging me. Check the gauge again. Yes, for sure where the guage should be 18 sts = 4 inches I've got at least 22 or 23! So, Fletch won't know, but I will. Every time I look at that pillow, I will know it should have, and could have been just a bit bigger (and a bit better).
So I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna face that FROGAPHOBIA head on and get this damn pillow done right!
Moving on in this painful process, my tea cozy has suffered the same fate. The pattern calls for two skeins of Noro Keyreon, I ran out well before the end of the pattern. It took me a good week to check the gauge there. I just wanted to felt that cozy and warm up my tea!!!!!!! I started frogging it last night. It wasn't too painful. With every wrap around my center-pull ball, and every rip of another row I pictured a tea cozy that FITS.
So now instead of knitting actual projects I have at least four gauge swatches (socks, diaper cover, guitar) on needles and three more(tea cozy, basket, scarf) I need to work on! It's frustrating, but it's got to be done.
I do have good/semi good news:
Fletch loves his slippers!
We have to put them up when he's not wearing them, Turbo loves them too, and will chew on them if given the chance! The reason these beauties are only semi good news is that I, or rather the old me - lazy me, followed directions for the small slippers, instead of the medium! I guess I am in denial about Fletch's growth. So I had to stop felting early, to make them fit and they are not as tight as I would have liked, you can still really see the stitches.
Another Lesson Learned the HardWay I am happy with:
So, I knit another bowl of my own design. I wanted to make a big one, and while knitting I realized I might run out of the yarn I was using, so I started to decrease. I think I decrease too fast, because my "bowl" was flat. Not only flat, but it had RUFFLES. This being pre-frogging, I went ahead and felted to see what might happen. It came out flat. Surprise, surprise! I was disappointed. I tried forming it over a bowl, that did not work. I was ready to cut it up for felted fabric, Fletch and I were playing around with it when I started turning those ruffles into pleats! Funny, cause I can't stand pleats. I used to wear pleated pants in grade school and swore off all pleats long ago. WELL, hello pleats, you've saved my bowl:
I pinned it to dry.
inside drying with Fletcher's slippers. Now that it's dry I am sewing those fabulous pleats! I will post a picture when done.
Barb,
Can't wait to see you pictures from your trip, whenever your computer helps you out in that department. Your Silk Garden Scaf is beautiful!
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