M is for

major mess-ups :P and making amends :D

So i have been knitting a cabled vest for the baby of a good friend of mine. i plan on knitting a matching one for his brother too.
I decided to knit the back in plain stockinette b/c 1. who's gonna see it on a baby anyway - he's always laying down lol 2. ease for me as i wanted this done relatively quickly and 3. baby doesnt want dimension under his back while napping.
Well. I do of course know cables draw in but that much????? the back is 4 inches wide than the front 8^O !!! And apparently i cant count because it is also about 10 rows shorter than the front.
The front is very pretty.
I was thinking of doing the magic splice trick on the back but that would only fix the length, not the width.
Enter the friends. I asked Katia who is an excellent knitter and always full of great advice on finishing techniques. She said what i knew deep down but didnt want to face - you're going to have to rip out the back and start over if you want this to look nice. Period! I have made peace withthis but have not been able to actually take the step and do it- i plan on doing that tonight. Wish me luck.

I am also knitting some socks for Alex. Well, actually they were supposed to be for me because my kids and dh cannot appreciate handknit socks. But that was mess-up number 1 : no gauge swatch (i mean, they're socks, come on! by the time you knit a swatch you're already done withthe leg almost lol), and mess-up number 2 : no measuring. These are mess-ups though that arent a big deal because Alex did say she likes them and would gladly wear them - but only to keep her feet warm at night, not in shoes. I like the idea of her wearing them while camping with the scouts and having a nice "hug" from mom keeping her warm all night.
So i was knitting along and well, can i jsut say i'm a lazy knitter? I mean, if i make a mistake i usually leave it. I'mnot a maniac about it as long as the construction or look isnt affected by it. I mean who can see that you fudged a st here and there to get the st count right? lol
so i made an error that i ignored and fudged, and another and another and another... until i just wanst at all happy withthat sock and didnt want to work on it anymore. Here's another lazyness in my knitting life. I usually toss such bad offenders in a corner and never take them out again but thank goodness i'm knitting these as a kal with a friend so i felt obligated to not relegate them to the UFO bin. I instead spent a morning ripping back all of the gusset shaping to the bottom of the heel and starting over again. I learned from my errors and have since gotten past where i originally was and am liking them much more!

And finally Alex' dress. Oh my goodness what have i gotten myself in to! :P
so i'm working on bodice. I sewed it completely together (it's lined) in such a way that i could not turn it back right side out so i had to painstakingly unstitch the shoulder seams responsible for the inside out garment and then imagine my horror when i did get it right side out and found that the edges were all wonky and wierd and wouldnt lay flat. grrrrrr!!!! and no idea what to do to fix it. let's not even talk about the fact that i cut out the skirt lining without adding the seam allowance - i might not ever make it that far anyway ;)
so, this saturday, i asked the most knowledgeable and accomplished sewist i know, isabelle what she thought. Apparently the solution isnt too bad; i need to trim the seams and then crint it much more. I will try that out over the next few days and see if it helps. if itdoes, i will move forward. if it doesnt, i'm going to abandon this project. it's killing my sewing. By the time i finish this thing, Alex will be too big for it :P

Thank goodness for friends. :D
I just wish i could see them more often (the ones irl or the online one) ;P
and that includes YOU :D