Just a flying visit to Julia's weekly workdesk show and tell today - it's my fortnightly Wednesday day off, the sun is shining and the desk is calling. The peg doll is now sporting an experimental needle-felted wig, temporarily held in place with a jaunty blue bow, and I'm hoping to make some real progress with her today. Shoes, cardigan, shawl, petticoat, trimmings...she has plenty of titivating in store for her.
The only other activity on the creative front over the past week or so is this tweedy purple twice-knitted hat.
I was trying to use up some of my enormous yarn stash, and decided to take a gamble on a random remnant of pale purple DK yarn, combined with some variegated sock yarn, to make a second Quinn hat. Unfortunately I lost at the game of Yarn Chicken - getting to just seven rows from the cast-off before running out of the pale purple yarn. I tried finishing the hat with a slightly darker shade of purple, but really wasn't happy with the result - a small, slightly darker purple, circular patch at the crown.
As luck would have it, I'd added an extra five rows to the ribbing at the start, to make the hat slightly longer over my ears, so the perfectionist voice in my head whispered to me that if I unravelled it back and took out the five extra rows, I would almost certainly have enough yarn to complete the hat. Perfectionism is an irrational taskmaster - after all, who would notice a small, slightly darker purple, circular patch at the crown of the hat (on the top/back of my head)? Not even me when I was wearing it! The hat would function perfectly well as a head-warming garment, and unravelling it would mean basically starting again from scratch...
Yet unravel it I did, and re-knit it I did...and still managed to come up one and a half rows short from the cast off! So if you look very closely at the crown of the hat (being modelled by my long-suffering husband, below) you can just make out a teeny-tiny patch of slightly darker purple, which will serve as a visual reminder to me, every time I wear it, that perfectionism is a losing game!
Hi there, I love the colour of the hat, and I'm sure no-one would ever have noticed, but you're probably like my Hubby- his answer is always ' but I'll KNOW it's there', lol. Have a lovely week, Hugs, Shaz #4 X
ReplyDeleteI would be cursing!! well done for getting it done even if you had to "fix" it... like Shaz says, we'd not have noticed had you not said. It looks great, btw Helen #12
ReplyDeleteBeautiful projects, loving the hat and the dolly is gorgeous. Have a lovely creative woyww, Angela x2x
ReplyDeleteHi there. That's a great hat - well done. But twice knitted... oh my! Love the peg doll. She's great
ReplyDeleteTake care. God bless.
Margaret #15
I do like your knitted hat and to know the amount of time and effort that has gone into correcting the yarn shortage is amazing. Have a safe and crafty week.
ReplyDeletesandra de@8
Love the hat and would never have noticed the slightly darker patch if it hadn't been pointed out! Happy belated WOYWW. Sarah #13
ReplyDeleteSince purple is my favourite colour, the hat looks perfect to me. I would never have noticed a small darker patch - still can't see it, but if you know it's there, and it will annoy you, then yes redoing it was the only answer. You must be a very patient person. Have a lovely week Heather xx #21
ReplyDeletePerfectionism vs yarn chicken: I would have done the same!
ReplyDelete-- Gretchen (aka stashdragon)
It was the knowledge that I had added five extra rows of ribbing at the start that made re-knitting seem sensible! Not sure what I would have done if I'd simply run out - maybe made a big bobble to hide the dark purple patch? Or just unravelled it and turned it into something completely different!
DeleteLol at your perfectionism, Amelia! Join the club - I'm just as bad! I'm having trouble with the pattern the County Show people handed out for the knitted bunting project - I've now made 3 and they are all too big (larger than the size restriction they say) and I've followed the pattern to the letter. Time to get back to the drawing board and design my own on graph paper. The ones I've done are going to be unravelled, just like your hat!! Perfectionism is indeed a hard task-master... Thank you for your visit, and I'm so pleased that you like my Celtic knots. I can part with them easily enough because I've got photos, and with the designs scanned and saved, I can print more out any time I want. Each one is slightly smaller than 3 inches square - the card is cut to just over 3 inches, so they will be suitable for card toppers. However, if I want, now that I've got digital versions, they could be printed out any size I wanted.
ReplyDeleteLol at your comment about the difference between our kitties being as plain as the noses on their faces!! How true. I still can't imagine how we missed such an obvious difference in the early days.
Happy belated WOYWW,
Shoshi #11