I should have seen it coming when I knit the thumb. I picked up the wrong number of stitches. I dropped stitches. I messed up the pattern. My floats were tight. My decreases sucked... and then I tried on the mitten. The thumb was fine (somehow. I mean, I knit it three times so I shouldn't be surprised, but I am), but the mitten, the WHOLE FREAKING MITTEN was too small! You see that? You see what happened? The magic that had given me a perfectly fitting, one-day mitten wore off and it became what it was all along. A stupid too-small mitten with ugly decreases that may very well be partnerless for eternity because when I started the second one?
It was too big. Like two inches too big. (I think I've moved from Cinderella to Goldilocks. The only problem is that mittens come in twos, not threes and therefore I will never have one that is "just right.") Yayo of the comments was right when she told me to rip out the first cuff and start over (but I couldn't reply to her comments directly because I don't have her email address so I'm tell you here, Yayo. Totally spot on. I must have just been wearing my rose-tinted glasses. Or maybe they were more like beer goggles.)
Knitting totally blows sometimes, ya know?
Argh! Well, beer goggles, rose-tinted glass, or whatever it was, sometimes a project just doesn't work out as you hope. Sorry, Peter. I hope you find your Goldilocks mitten soon.
ReplyDeleteI wish I hadn't been right :(.
ReplyDeleteYayo = theytoldmesew...for future reference ;).
And too small or too big - you still knit beautifully.
Maybe you need to just consider finding a person who only has one hand, and voila...you have a complete set.
ReplyDeleteOr stand it in a glass bell (like on Beauty and the Beast) and pretend you always intended it to be a showpiece.
If those options don't sound viable enough, here's a pat on the back. Maybe what you need is time to leave and come back to it fresh, like you did for the first one.
Sorry... What a roller coaster! I hate that... I can feel the frustration though. I have a mitten that I knit before Christmas last year that was just too big. I was defeated and just left everything in it's bag. That is where it has sat since then. I have to get up the courage to rip it out or write it off and start anew...
ReplyDeleteOh no!
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry to hear that. I had hoped you could knit fast enough to not have any heartbreak. Can you felt the tiny mitten so some lucky hamster can use it as an oven mitt? ;^)
Once when I knit the second mitten bigger (or smaller, I can't remember) than the first, I knit a third and it matched one of them, so then I knit a fourth (I had plenty of yarn) so I could have two pair. And then I gave them to a mom-daughter team... Pairs of things can be such a pita! Good luck!
ReplyDelete1) I like Cookie's idea of a hamster mitten.
ReplyDelete2) You know who has a hamster, right?
3) Spunky the Hamster.
4) Spunky. LOL
Oh no! Can you knit this pair for a friend or family member? The mitten is beautiful (I don't see the "ugly decreases") and it would be a pity for it to go forgotten. If really it can't be rescued, then look at it as a really big swatch. :)
ReplyDelete