Best Laid Schemes

In honor of all the knitters whose projects don’t always end up as planned, I offer a story….

I’m super excited about this week’s Deal of the Day. I love Rowan's Baby Alpaca DK. Knowing that this yarn was going to be in the spotlight this week, I wanted to make a sample for the shop. I picked the Garfunkel Hat for its “I’m not going to let cold weather stop me” attitude with its double-layer brim and Fair Isle pattern. Usually when I knit up samples for the shop, I try to follow the pattern as closely as I can; as soon as I started this one though, I knew that I was going to alter it a bit. I decided that I only wanted to do the first and last row of Fair Isle diamonds. OK, that’s not a huge alteration. Everything was going along smoothly for the first 2/3rds of the project and I was loving the yarn. I could tell that this was going to be the go-to hat for the coldest days this winter. The alpaca is so warm! Then, I got to the decreases at the crown of the hat… oh no. Somewhere along the way, my stitch count must have gotten off (I don’t know how, I had the right number during the Fair Isle section) because my decreases weren’t working out right. Ok, no problem… I’ll just do what I think pattern “wants” me to do. Well, a few rounds later I figured out that if I continued decreasing at the rate that I was, I would have a very long and pointy hat only fit for a Conehead... not what I was going for.

After getting Kate’s advice, I decided to decrease as quickly as I could and hide the non-symmetrical, non-consistent decreases with a cute pom-pom (I was planning on the pom-pom anyway, honest… just look at the pattern.)

Those of you that know me know that I am a knitting perfectionist. I will happily rip out yards of yarn to get rid of one small mistake with full knowledge that I am the only person who would ever have seen it had I just left it alone. Allowing this hat to be shown in the shop is a step forward for me in my getting-over-my-knitting-perfectionism process. It is kind of cathartic. When you all see it, please be kind and know that it barely resembles the hat that I was intending to knit. To top it all off (no pun intended), Dawn saw it and said, “Oh, it looks like a golf club cover!” Sigh.

Oh well! What are you going to do? The best laid schemes, right? At least it is soft and warm. Here it is! Happy knitting!