I'm not a knitter, but I play one on TV!

First of all, let me apologize for the lack of posts in the past two weeks. I blame it on the weather. I think blogging takes place in my life after knitting, playing with the cats, watching "Dancing with the Stars" and "Kept", eating, reading other people's blogs, and reading on the beach. I also blame the project I'm working on now, which I'll get to in a moment.

I missed Flashback Friday last week, so I'll post a silly picture of my second knitted project ever. It's a scarf made out of Manos that I did almost two years ago when we lived in DC and I actually needed a scarf.

Don't I look happy? I had to send the photo to my family in California because I was so proud!

Onto my current WIP. Have you ever had one of those projects that is just so infuriating, so unexpectedly difficult, and yet so mind-numbingly boring that you just want to throw it in the trash? Folks, let me introduce you to Hike:


Hike is from Rowan 37 and is made with Calmer. I've been wanting to knit with Calmer forever, since I saw the Audrey-along. However, I decided that Calmer was too expensive and that I could just dream of it. Then I saw some Calmer on sale - I could afford it! But it was in "Squirrel", which I thought was charcoal grey, but is really just sort of faded black. So I decided to knit Hike with it.

First obstacle - the pockets. I really didn't like the pockets but I liked the line of the cardigan. So I designed small little pockets with a ribbed edge that Rob told me were cute.


Then I started knitting. (Beginning of stream of consciousness) Hmmm... Calmer is really elastic. It's too elastic. I think I can get gauge - got it! It's kind of sticky. I can't knit fast with it. Wait, my gauge is off. It's REALLY off. I'll just knit tighter. Wait, now I'm knitting too tight. There's lots of cat hair on my sweater. I'll just brush it off... I can't brush it off! I'll pick it off strand by strand. Maggie, get off of the sweater. You can't sit on my lap. Oh, Maggie, I'm sorry. Don't hide under the TV. I HATE THIS YARN! (end of SOC)

So now my sweater is all sorts of gauge and sizes and weirdness. Here are my pathetically undersized pockets for an example:

They aren't the same size - they aren't even close! You can imagine how each side turned out by that example. One size is too big and the other side it too small. But I don't like the sweater enough to frog and re-knit.

Of course, as I was taking photos of the sweater, look who came up to give it some love?

Thankfully Unki's hair is both grey and short, so I won't worry about picking off right now.

The only saving grace about this sweater is that it's black and most of the flaws just fade away into the shadows. I just need to sew in the zipper and then I'll see if it's worthy of photos. Don't keep your hopes up.