Two Steps Forward, One Back

Ribbit, ribbit. Do I hear frogs in the backyard? No, it's the sound of me ripping out the entire Cozy Striped Kerchief that I had just finished.

I know it sounds crazy, but it just didn't look right to me. And if I'm going to do this challenge, I want to be satisfied with the results and not just waste my stash making dumpy things.

Though it drives my husband bats when I number things, here are my three reasons for frogging:

#1. It was making me crazy that I didn't have the brown contrast stripe on every garter stitch ridge. Sometimes, almost good enough isn't good enough.

#2. The brown silk/cotton yarn, looked great, but I miscalculated the thickness. The 8-ply that I created was a DK weight, when what it wanted was a worsted weight to match the bands between the ridges. So, out comes the drop spindle again.

and the clincher,

#3. The finished kerchief was too small. I had to end it sonner than I should have because I ran out of the ladder yarn. However, I have plenty of the silk/bamboo and plenty of the brown silk/cotton, so.........

Ribbit, ribbit.

Everything's back in the bag, and I'm going to start again. The solutions to the above problems, as I see them (sorry, Bob):

1. Every garter ridge will be brown, but first....

2. I will re-spin the brown yarn into a 10-ply worsted weight and try again.

3. To help extend the ladder yarn, I'll take my daughter's advice to alternate the 6-row bands between the garter ridges: one with the silk/bamboo-ladder combination, and one with just the silk-bamboo. That way, I can make the pattern the correct size and be happy. :)

*****

In the meantime, I'm continuing with the Zig Zag Baby Blanket. No new photos, since it looks the same as before, only longer. It's nice, sometimes, to have a simple pattern for a reliable outcome.

I'm also slowly getting on with the Irish Lace collar. After figuring out my dilemma (see last 2 posts), I've worked another row and a bit more of the next. Here's how it's looking so far:

And last night, I got to use a little of my scratchy Icelandic wool and the remnant of some brown Fun Fur to make an ancient Mongolian hat for my son's presentation on Genghis Khan to his homeschool co-op class today. It took 4 tries, but I finally got it to look the way I wanted:

He did a great job on his report, by the way!