Can This Project Be Salvaged?

Three years ago I started a hat for my husband. I had been doing a lot of double knitting (which makes colorwork really easy, if time consuming) and decided to make an astronomy hat for him.

In double knitting, the back of the project is the photo-negative of the front. Astronomers use photo negatives to look at stars more easily. My husband is an astronomer. Ergo, I would make him a reversible hat that would show the moon and stars, and would be an astronomy negative on the inside. Since he is always cold, I would give it earflaps. And, just to add a bit of color, The ear flaps would portray a sunset.

I used MacStitch to design the moon, and I also added a shooting star. The stars themselves would be individual stitches placed somewhat randomly in the knitting.

I picked out my yarn: black (of course) and a variegated gray that I had to give the moon (and the negative) some texture. Since it was fingering weight, I doubled it to make worsted-weight yarn.

A good color for a moon?

It was going to be glorious. And then it all went wrong.

Mostly, it was simply poor planning. The pattern looked great! But I spent so much time thinking about the colorwork that I managed to make a mis-shapen thing that could only generously be called a hat.

Would you wear this?

So, 11 months after I started it, I shelved it and declared it a failure. But...

I never got around to ripping it out. I was so annoyed that I had spent all that time for nothing, that I was disgusted with the project. I didn't want to keep working on the sign of my incompetence. But I wasn't actually willing to pull it apart either.

So...

Today I thought I would have another go at it. I ripped back to the edge of the crown and carefully put it on a needle, looked at some patterns for earflap hats (to get a better sense of proportions) and got to work.

I hadn't recorded what needle I used, so I guessed a 7, but otherwise, there haven't been any major snags. It was a bit hard to figure out where the round starts too, but not impossible. It took awhile to get all of the stitches on the needle in the right order (double knitting means twice as many), but I am well on my way.

With a little distance from the disaster, it feels less like I wasted a ton of time, and more like a salvageable learning experiment.

My other colorwork hat that I have been working on is done. I will post on it when I have the pictures up.

Wingspan Shawl

Finals done! Whoot!

Surprisingly, I actually got a lot of knitting done, though my spinning has been mostly on hiatus.

The end of the semester means a lot of presentations to sit through (no need for notes), not too mention our trip to Boston (which included an unscheduled 3 hour wait for our plane to arrive). It also helped that the Wingspan scarf was very intuitive, and consisted of nothing but knit stitches.

In other words, I have almost finished the scarf I was working on. I just need to block it, really.

Gradient Wingspan scarf. Not yet blocked.

I like how the gradient worked out, although the light green is a bit neon in my opinion. The short rows were really easy, and I can see why the pattern is so popular.

The edging was done with some black sparkly acrylic yarn that I have had sitting around. I think it was a gift, and I don't know the brand or anything, but I do have a lot of it. I wanted to use regular black yarn, but I didn't have any fingering weight black, and I refuse to buy more yarn for such a small project bit. I think the intended recipient will like it though.

Mystery sparkly black yarn

I like how the yarn looks, and I made a whole series of gloves with it awhile ago. But the plastic sparkles hurt my fingers when I knit with it, and I really prefer natural fibers.

Fingerless gloves from almost a decade ago

Anyhow, not much else to report. Progress on the linen hat continues. I will have some more time now, since the semester finished, so I can hopefully finish everything before the 20th. Sometimes it is nice to work with a deadline.