Flower Petal Hat or Dang Gauge Anyway

I hate gauge I hate gauge I hate gauge. It took me 2 hours, 4 different needle sizes, and countless froggings to come to the realization that I have the wrong weight yarn for my Flower Petal Hat. Nevermind my co-worker had the same problem with her DK weight yarn that I'm having. I somehow thought my knitting would be different. There is absolutely no way that I can get 6 stitches to the inch with worsted weight yarn. Dang! I really should have bought sport weight.

So instead, I'm changing the pattern. Heaven forbid I start knitting the hat in different yarn. Or knit a different hat in that yarn. Or say screw the whole thing and just put the yarn away for a year (or three) until I forget the pain. All this so I can have a hat to work on at tonight's Optimist Club knitting night.

Hanauma Bay Sock

Here's the first sock. It's got an eye of partidge heel, the first one I've ever done. It's hard to see here, but the inside is really pretty. Once I turned the heel the rest of the foot went very fast. Now I just have to get trucking on the 2nd sock. I've got about a 1/2 inch of the cuff done. I was waiting for my KnitPicks circulars to come, thinking I would do the 2nd one on 2 circular needles (less needle intersections and therefore theoretically easier lace pattern) however their shipping time is dismal. I think they told me 10-30 days on the phone. YIKES! So I went ahead and started it on doublepoints.

This is an attempt to organize myself and my knitting projects. A way to actually prove to myself (and maybe my husband too) that I do get some knitting projects done! A way to organize my thoughts. A way to get a grip on the OCD thoughts that I have about knitting in the middle of the night. (Hey, it's either knitting or worrying about the kids, which would you prefer?)

I've been rather frustrated with my knitting lately. Lots of frogging (ripping back) has been done on several projects. I don't even want to pick up the cute little circle sweater I am making for Addie because I screwed up the sleeve and have to rip it back. Did it occur to me anywhere in the 8 freaking inches that I knitted that perhaps the sleeve was a "tad" wide? That maybe you could put 3 of Addie's little toddler arms in there? Yes, yes, I know that my gauge isn't quite on... but how much difference could that make? Oh yeah, and here I was supposed to switch to a smaller size needle. Oh yeah, and it's supposed to be 2x2 ribbing instead of stockinette. Geez! Read the pattern already!! I have no idea what I was thinking.

Then there's the sock I'm knitting. Number 2 sock actually (I'm very proud that I'm not succumbing to 2nd Sock Syndrome!) I had to rip it out after I got to the pattern stitch because I did the math wrong. 9x7 = 63 not 64. So I frogged it, started over and got back to the exact same point before I realized that I hadn't started the 2nd sock at the same point in the yarn pattern that I started the first. So one sock starts the color graduation with yellow, the other starts with blue. Who needs matching socks anyway? The colors will all be the same, they just won't be the same color at the same points. Maybe mom won't notice....