not quite autopilot

So. Pictures. Right.

See, here’s the thing. Hedera is being neglected out of guilt, but this leaves me with two projects that have two-row repeats. And one of those is seed stitch, and set up so that I don’t even have to pay attention to where I’m at as long as I knit my purls and purl my knits, so that doesn’t count. BUT I CAN’T HANDLE THIS MUCH MINDLESS KNITTING.

The intent was to complete these for my father’s birthday. It’s in 10 days and this is #1, so obviously, not happening. Slip-stitch ribbing is prettier than normal ribbing, but… still ribbing. I briefly contemplated throwing in some cables, but I’m a little far along for that and anyway, with 15 knit ridges it’s awkward count-wise.

And this would be Le Slouch avec Les Problèmes. Beaucoup des problèmes. You see, Knitpicks is somewhat marginally vague about yarn gauge. The pattern said worsted, the yarn said worsted and was $3.99 and my mother liked it, and so I went with it. I bought 7″ DPNs for it because longer than that would irritate me in future uses.

And then I realized how ridiculously different my gauge was. Also, that I come from a family of large-headed people. So…. I wound up having to add somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 stitches. I’ll figure out the decreases when we get there, but mostly, I’m just going “HLAHFSDJFHSDFA TOO MANY STITCHES” on this one. I am compensating by upping the tension so they don’t scuttle off the ends whenever I set it down, but this makes it less than enjoyable to work on.

Because this has been a lot of bitching about frustrating knitting… I never got a proper picture of the fetus, now that I think of it. But it has been gifted, and it is loved.