Mea culpa

So in my last entry, I airily wrote of my confidence that the grey yarn I found on the workroom table in the basement was the same as the Cascade 220 #9473 I was using for my dad's Morgan hat; and that therefore, it was no problem if I ran out of the single skein I had bought for the project.

Famous.
Last.
Words.

Because on going back to that grey yarn soon after ripping out the hat and starting all over again, it was extremely obvious that it was not the same colour grey. I then compared the mystery grey yarn to the cabled hat of my husband's that I thought it was the leftover for, and hey guess what - not the same colour either, which meant that it was not, in fact, Cascade 220 at all, but something else. (A squeeze-and-smell test revealed that it was actually most likely acrylic, very likely the leftovers from DD1's Gryffindor sweater vest project.)

So, curses!

Especially when I did actually run out of yarn on the Morgan hat.

Fortunately, this didn't happen until I had done everything except the ribbing at the bottom which folds up into the inside of the hat, and is therefore not actually seen from the outside. So I grabbed some red Cascade 220 left over from a sweater project for me and a cowl project for DD1's teacher last year (and by "grabbed", I actually mean "frantically ransacked the house when I couldn't find it in any of the usual spots I expected it be located in"), and used it to do the ribbing. That part finished, it turns out that I even had enough of a grey tail to do all the sewing-up. Thus:

Side view:




One-quarter view (or three-quarters view, I'm not exactly sure how that terminology works):




Front view (very Flemish, I know; I'm sure it would look much less so if the hat were not far too big for the mannequin head):




Detail shot of the red ribbing hem:

Still a little lumpy, but experience with this pattern tells me it will improve substantially after a good steam-blocking.

So I guess this means I've now finished eight of my thirteen holiday knitting projects, right?

Hell, no.

Because I suddenly realised that I had no present for BIL1, whose 50th birthday we celebrated this weekend. I'm not sure how I managed to miss this; it wasn't as though I forgot he had a birthday coming up - we planned a party and have been talking about it for ages, it's been very top-of-mind. I guess my brain just never made the connection that this should have meant doing some knitting.

Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, so I took his Christmas socks and wrapped them up for his birthday. He loved them, and referred to them as something like "the best socks ever" throughout the evening. :) I'm not sure whether I'll make another pair of socks for him for Christmas, or a pair of mittens. That'll be a decision for another day.

And finally, despite the fact that I have already submitted nine design proposals this year and have three more planned (and in fact very close to being all ready to go once the issues I want for them open up for submissions), for a total of twelve for my 12-in-12 challenge...well...I read a few more submission calls and...well...you can probably guess what happened. :) The swatch and the proposal are all ready to go for one submission, I'm planning to send it off tomorrow; and I need to buy some yarn for the second idea. It's kind of crazy to think that there's a very good chance I might be able to do fourteen submissions this year! But we'll see how it goes.

Tomorrow, though, I've just got to get back to making a dent in the holiday knitting. The mittens for our daycare provider and the socks for BIL2 are top of my list. Yes. Really. Dammit.

Borg knitting

Seven of thirteen is complete:

Blinded by that thousand-watt grin from my wannabe-model? Okay, here's another one with the teeth toned down some, although the hair impedes the view of the bolero:

I have since tucked it away in the Basket of Holding under the family room coffee table, where I'm keeping all the holiday gifts. I'll be bringing it out again in (hopefully) a few weeks, though, to ship it off (along with the other holiday gifts and our birthday gift, all of which I will presumably have bought by that point) to my niece in time for Christmas. I hope she loves it.

In other news, I finished the first mitten for our daycare provider and got started on the ribbing for the second one. I'm not completely confident that it will fit well, but I'm hoping things even out and stretch a bit in the blocking.

And it looks like I have indeed lost all the charting that I did for my brother's hat, which I was perfectly happy with and which, to my very great irritation, I kept meaning to print out prior to losing it but never ended up doing so. Curses. Hopefully I can recreate it to the same degree of satisfaction as the original.

Next up, though: I think I shall rip out my dad's Morgan hat in preparation for doing it all.over.again. This time, in an attempt to make a hat that will actually fit his head, not only will I not knit tightly (which I did originally out of fear of running out of yarn), but I also think I'll use a 4.5mm needle instead of a 4mm. This weekend while looking for something else in the basement, I found some extra of what I'm positive is the same yarn (Cascade 220) and pretty confident is the same colour (9473) from a completely different project, so I am not going to worry about running out. (Worst case scenario, it's the same colour family, and I will therefore be able to fudge things handsomely.)

Fingers crossed that I can get to at least nine of thirteen by this time next week, and hopefully ten.

Gifts a-plenty

So I've revised my holiday knitted gifts list down to a more reasonable level (I think), and started working on it in earnest. (Family members, LOOK AWAY NOW PLEASE!)

1. Morgan hat for Dad
   
   When last we left this, I had realised it came out much too small to fit my dad, and that I would have to frog it all and restart. I still have to do this.
   
   
   
2. Two pairs of socks for Mom
   
   One pair, as I've already mentioned, is done. And I've started the other one:
   
   
   
   
   
   Although if I get crunched for time, I'll drop the idea of making a second pair.
   
   
   
3. Hat for my brother
   
   This is a complete non-surprise for him, because he has a very specific kind of hat in mind that he wants me to knock off, and we've been discussing the details extensively. I haven't started it, but I have charted the essential pattern and found the yarn for it, which is an excellent start. Next task: find out his head circumference.
   
   
   
4. Durrow sweater for DH
   
   Haven't touched this in a while. Still hoping I won't run out of yarn on the sleeves.
   
   
   
5. Secret Garden cardigan for DD3
   
   When last we left this, I was totally stalling on continuing because I was convinced I was going to run out of yarn before finishing the collar and button bands. That's still where I am, but I am at least resolved to buy some more yarn (different yarn, same colour, which should be fine since it's probably just the button bands I'd need to use it for) if I do indeed run out, rather than ripping the whole thing back and starting again.
   
   
   
6. Socks for BIL#1
   
   Done!
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Socks for BIL#2
   
   Started!
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Mittens for our daycare provider
   
   The nice thing about this gift is that I can give it to her as a New Year's present, as she doesn't celebrate Christmas. One extra week to work on it, ha ha! But I have found some spectacular motif inspiration for this, and am really looking forward to designing it. The trick will be to resist doing that until I've made better headway on the projects which all have an earlier deadline.
   
   
   
9. Cowl for DD1's teacher
   
   Done! No pictures though, sorry. I'm hoping a magazine will like the design.
   
   
   
10. Mittens for DD2's teacher
    
    Yarn has been purchased, motifs have been decided upon, and right now I'm just figuring out gauge. I originally started with 4mm needles but I have a bad feeling that's going to make pretty breezy mittens, so I'm going to try seeing what gauge I get with 3.5mms instad.
    
    
    
11. Fingerless mitts for DD1's dance teacher
    
    Anne Neumann's Musica pattern has been in my queue for ages, and I thought it would work really nicely for this purpose. DD1 concurs, although she's asked if maybe I could replace the bass and treble clefs with pointe shoes, or some other ballet-related motif? So I'm going to try.
    

You'll notice I've dropped the projects for DD1 and DD2 - that's in the interest of my own sanity. I make them stuff throughout the year, so this is not a tragedy. And hey, if I finish everything with time to spare, I'll cast on for them. Although admittedly, if I have time to spare, I'm much more likely to cast on something for my niece instead.

I also picked up a new piece of gift knitting that needs to be finished for this weekend, which is the grand 10th anniversary celebration of one of my bestest friends. :) It's a challah cover:

It may look like I'm doing well there, but even after that lace edging gets finished, it has to be sewn to the main section; then there's a cable to be knitted that has to be sewn over the edging seam; and then there's embroidery. Things could get tight.

Sometimes sizing mojo deserts me

Updated to add: This post made my lovely commenter think she had offended me. :( She totally did not, I was really just using what she said as an excuse to poke fun at myself and how my projects don't always work out as planned - something which I'm sure has happened to all of us! I'm very, very sorry to have made her feel like she needed to apologize to me - this is clearly a valuable lesson for me to learn about blogging and responding to comments. I've edited things so that hopefully I don't sound offended; and instead sound amused at my own knitting vagaries, which is what I meant to be.

On Ravelry, one of my readers was lovely enough to comment on the cardigan I tried to make for DD2, but actually ended up fitting DD1. She light-heartedly observed that this "hey, it doesn't fit" phenomenon seems to happen to me quite a bit. This reminded me that sometimes the size of things doesn't always turn out properly, you know?

For instance, my dad's Morgan hat for Christmas?

I tried to finish it recently and found that somehow, although I had been following the large instructions, it had come out way too small. No clue how that happened, since it was sized just right when I made it last year for DD2's teacher. As far as I can tell, the only way to fix it is to rip the whole thing back and start again, probably with larger needles this time. (And I'm almost certainly going to run out of yarn the second time around, but I should be able to get around that by knitting the part that folds under out of sight in a different colour of the same yarn.)

My Ljod cardigan turned out too big for me:

DH's 50th birthday present was far too massive:

This Sourpatch vest ended up fitting DD1 instead of DD2 as originally intended:

These mittens for BIL#2 are pretty damn huge:

This much-anticipated Fjalar sweater for myself doesn't really fit right in the proper places, plus I made the sleeves too short:

I meant for this to be a beret and failed miserably (I have since figured out beret physics, though, yay):

These socks have never fit me properly, I think I made the feet too short:

This tabard keeps falling off my shoulders:

These mittens never got past this point as it was clear they were going to be far too huge:

This sweater for DH totally fooled me - I started out making a medium, then the ribbing made me think it was going to be too small, so I ripped it back and did it in large instead, and guess what? Too big, of course!

And then, worst of all, my first adult sweater for DH, which ended up coming down to about his knees:

I can't be alone here, right? :) Do you have any projects with sizing woes?

Traction: I don't haz it

At the end of May, I blogged that I'd realised I had sixty WIPs kicking around the house, assuming I finished DH's birthday socks and DD2's cardigan. Well, as already seen, I finished those socks; and recently, I finished the cardigan:

(As predicted, it fits DD1, not DD2.)

Plus I've finished some more items besides, and I now find myself with...sixty-two WIPs.

Oh dear.

And I thought I was doing so well.

I mean, seriously - in the last three months or so, I've finished a cardigan, a pair of Pemberley Slippers, three glitzy scarves, a felted purse, two pairs of socks, three cupcakes, a blanket, a vest, two prototypes of which I cannot speak, and a tank top. That's not shabby! And yet, I am further behind on my WIP count than when I started.

(Yes, I am perfectly aware that the reason for this is that many of those finished projects were also new projects on top of the monstrous pile of WIPs I already had. Someday, Mia Michaels will choreograph an emotionally gripping piece about the compelling, seductive power of Startitis and its hapless knitter victim, and then everyone will understand how this could happen to me.)

But goshdarnit, I am determined to make some inroads on that huge total. It isn't, however, going well.

• Although I'm over halfway through my latest prototype, I realised that I need to totally re-jig a part of it, which means ripping and redoing.
  
• I was making excellent progress on DH's Durrow sweater, and then ran out of yarn. This seemed odd, since I thought I had slightly overbought just to be absolutely sure, which makes me think that maybe I am missing one ball? (Unfortunately, I wasn't really keeping track as I went.) So I'm going to call my mom and ask if maybe a ball rolled out of my bag at her place. And lordy, I hope it did, because the alternative is to rip back both almost-done sleeves and redo them a little shorter. (This will fortunately not affect the fit since the sleeves ended up longer than they were supposed to be, which is one reason why I think that the last ball of yarn hasn't gone missing at all but is rather part of the sweater already.)
  
• I want to finish off all the making-up on my dad's Morgan hat but still haven't gotten around to it.
  
• I got DD2 to try on the Mythos cardigan I started for her about two years ago to see just how badly she's outgrown it. The answer: not too badly, but considering she'll probably be wearing it this fall, it needed to be bigger. So last night I ripped it out and started again, with bigger needles. I should have enough yarn even with the size increase, because the original version had sleeves which were mondo long on her. (Famous. Last. Words.)
  
• Oh, and I started a new design prototype.
  

Moreover, yarn support (times two) should be arriving soon, and I'll have to dump everything for those. (But believe me, I'm NOT complaining about that! :)

Photographic evidence

margieinmaryland asked if I could post pictures of the finished 'Muppet roadkill' blanket. Sure can! Shortly after my last blog post, I sat down to weave in all the ends, and it is done like dinnah:

But wait, there's more!

We have my husband's Christmas socks: (now a little more advanced than pictured here, I'm just casting off the top at this point)

We have my dad's Christmas hat, which I bought the yarn for on Wednesday, started on Thursday, and finished the knitting of today:

top




bottom




side

I know it looks weird. Trust me, I've made it before, it all comes together at the end. Yarn is Cascade 220, and I was terrified that I was going to run out of the one skein that I bought. The pattern is Morgan by Anne Kuo Lukito, and I made it in the large size because my mom told me my dad has a large head. The pattern suggests two different yarns, one of which comes in 160-yard skeins, and the other of which comes in 240-yard skeins. Two skeins of the first yarn will do for either the medium or large size, but for the second yarn, the medium size needs one skein and the large size needs two skeins. Which means that somewhere between 160 and 240 yards are needed for the medium size, and somewhere between 240 and 320 yards are needed for the large size. Now, as I said, I'd made this before, and that time, it used up about 205 yards in the medium size. Reading through the instructions, the large doesn't take that many more stitches than the medium, so I was hoping against hope that the Cascade's 220 yards would be enough. But I was nervous. And I was especially nervous when I wound this particular skein through my yarn meter and it came out to only about 205 yards.

But, as you can see, I made it. With just 2.5g leftover! WHEW.

I did make one modification to the pattern this time: I did a three-needle bind-off to join the two halves of the peak together instead of the recommended grafting. I didn't want to cut the yarn anywhere in case I didn't have enough and had to rip back to do some yarn-saving techniques; and also, I figured the peak insert would be less likely to slice through a three-needle bind-off over time than through a graft.

I also shot the current progress of my mom's stretchy cotton Christmas socks:

In fact, the only things I've been working on that I don't have shots of for you are the design I'm working on (magazines don't want to publish already-seen designs), which you'll have to trust me about when I say it's coming along really nicely; and the Elizabeth of York vest (because I am actively refusing to have anything to do with it until I work up the fortitude to rip back half of the front border to correct my error - which, you're absolutely right Carrie K, is better than ripping back the whole thing).