Swatches LIE.

I have not measured, so I cannot be totally sure yet, but after washing and drying the baby items AGAIN yesterday...I don't think that Georgina's dryer has anti-shrink technology. -_- Also, these items take freaking forever to dry, which I should have anticipated (cotton) but didn't (dumbass). As I stood there staring at the unshrunk blanket, I found myself thinking, "I did dry it on delicate. Maybe delicate doesn't get as hot. Maybe if I wet it again and dry it on regular..."

But I can't keep doing this. I will wear it out before I even give it away. I have to accept it. It isn't going to shrink.

...

It's fine. It's just a little bigger than it should be, but it's a blanket so it's not the end of the world. Seriously. IT'S FINE.

I am totally lying. I HATE it when things don't turn out as I anticipate. It doesn't matter whether it has any effect on the ultimate usefulness of the item. THAT IS NOT HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE.

Now, in most areas of my life, I manage to accept the huge gap between "The way things Should Be" and "The way things Are." Failure to accept that gap leads to chronic unhappiness, a bad attitude, and a poor approach to life in general.

So, why can I not accept that when it comes to crafts? I know it's fine the way that it is but it isn't how it Should Be and so I get mad, occasionally leaving Sbodd to ask me why I continue with these hobbies. This usually results in me screaming at him, "BECAUSE I ENJOY IT NOW LEAVE ME ALONE."

Not a healthy attitude.

I, CraftNinja, do hereby swear and affirm, that I am not going to go into a closet and have a serious shit fit over the lack of shrinkage in this baby blanket, even though the label says it will shrink 10-15% and the stupid swatch shrank exactly the way it was supposed to - but I do hereby admit that it might be my fault, for not knitting and washing a second swatch in the pattern stitch, because that is the only freaking explanation I have for why this thing did not shrink like it was SUPPOSED TO.

Instead I will measure it calmly tonight, add the details of the post washing measurements to my Raverly entry for the benefit of anyone else who might wish to knit this project in Pakucho Organic Cotton. Then I will snip the ends, fold it up nicely in tissue paper, and put it aside until that unnamed day sometime in the future when the baby shower occurs. I will not be bitter about all the extra knitting I did in anticipation of shrinkage. I will instead remember that I like knitting and so extra knitting should not be seen as a sign that the universe hates me.

I will report back later on how this approach goes.

In other, more cheerful news, Odessa is proceeding at a pace that absolutely astonishes me. I have three full inches done out of the 5.5 that I have to do before beginning my decreases. I have only 2 quibbles:

1) Beads are heavy. I did not fully take this into account and the fifty bajillion beads I strung on the yarn (because I had no intention of counting out 150 tiny seed beeds so I just strung the whole package) are tugging significantly on my working yarn and it DRIVES ME CRAZY.
2) The beads do not slide as easily on the yarn as I expected they would, so moving the beads down the yarn makes me a little bit of the crazy.

But, again, it's going really fast - imagine how fast it would go if I had opted not to mess with the beads! I am starting to think I have a few million more on there than I actually need. Next time I will take the time and count out the 150. Lesson learned! I surrender!

But it is a darn cute hat.