Monday, February 08, 2010

The Big Bad Wolf Ate My Homework.....

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There I was, merrily knitting along on the bright crimson piece above, with visions of a cute hoodie as the finished product---so that I could call it the "Little Red Riding Hoodie".

And I would knit on this thing at night while watching TV with Blaine. I usually get "into the zone" when I'm knitting while doing something else, and I certainly get into "the zone" at night when we watch TV.

And then one evening, while drinking my favorite Constant Comment tea, a cold dread came over me as I realized my rounds were shorter....and so I finally took a good hard look at the thing....

And I noticed that it didn't have the number of stitches that it was supposed to have!! And I'm not talking 4 or 5 stitches, oh no---I'm talking about barely having enough stitches to make an 8 year old a Little Red Riding Hoodie!

After first giving a hideous scream, which caused the cats to scatter and Blaine to nearly fall off his couch, I fully realized what I'd done. HOW could I have DONE such a stupid thing???? I ask you....HOW???

What happened is that I wanted a bottom edge with "dinner bell" ruffles (which definitely look better in person than in this picture). (I took that picture on the back deck while it was snowing---can you tell?) And then after the dinner bell ruffles I wanted to put some...oh, popcorns all around the bottom edge. And then I further realized that if I was clever, I could do decreases to make the purl stitches between the popcorns gradually meet up with the knit stitches on top of the dinner bells......and have them all morph into K1, P1!

I was so thrilled with how it was turning out that I then put two rows of eyelets inside of purl ridges....and it was looking so RIGHT---I mean I really liked this thing.

Until I discovered that all those decreases in the popcorn area had diminished my stitches to around HALF of what they are supposed to be!! (You can see it in the picture.) Waaaaaahhhh!!!!!

I grabbed the thing and ran for the mirror (with EZ's theory of there being "no mistakes in knitting" ringing in my ears) and held it up to myself to see if I could save it somehow. Like.....maybe....a peplum or something?

But no matter how many hairbrain ideas I threw out, my brain told me that there was no choice....I was going to have to rip all the way back to the rows just above the dinner bell ruffles and start all over. (Because there is NO FRIGGING WAY that I'm gonna rip the damn things---and the decreases don't start till in the middle of the popcorns anyway.)

Sigh....

(Blaine wisely kept silent on the matter).

(And yes, I know that for someone who's been knitting since they were 10 years old this is a pretty lamebrain mistake to make.)

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5 comments:

kg said...

But it is so pretty!
Does remind me of a doll skirt or something though.

danielle said...

yeah, I will let you know how lamebraine you are i I can ever get this one (first) sock finished...3 tries to get the pink ribbons to look right (and since it took 3 tries, I stoppe with only 2 ribbons instead of 3) and am on my 3d try for the heel....and I thought I knew how to knit socks!!! LOL

Zenknitter LesleyD said...

I totally understand!! You wouldn't believe how many times I'm reknitting where I've unravelled because I couldn't pick up stitches especially yo's. UGH! It looks great Bo! I hope you don't unravel it. It's just too pretty!!

Bo... said...

Thanks, you guys! You make me feel better! I unraveled some but not all....aaargh...

Rose Blue said...

Bummer with a twist of yuk Bo. It looks so good. Can't wait to see the finished project.