Oops

It seems I goofed last week and the blog post I wrote never actually got published, and I didn't notice it until this weekend. So, um, here's an update on all the things you never actually saw before.

1. Olympic Knitting

I'm desperately behind for my goal. Naturally, last week instead of having most of my evenings at home, I ended up having plans for most of the week, which significantly cut into my knitting time. I also got kind of a slow start, I think - the sense of urgency I needed wasn't quite there the first weekend and I kept putting the sock down to rest my hands or concentrate on something else for a moment. Basically, it took me a week to complete the first pair of socks. This past Saturday I wasn't feeling well, I had a headache and just generally felt icky and I ended up sleeping for most of the day, which of course meant lots of lost knitting time. I tried to make up for it on Sunday and completed the first sock of the second pair. I've got the cuff done and I'm working on the leg for the second pair of socks, but honestly, I'm feeling like if I make 3 pairs at this point I will think I did well. Of course, now in addition to all the time issues I have, I'm being slowed by physical concerns. I have a permanent red stripe on the finger I tension the yarn around, so I've taken to wearing a band aid over that finger when I am going to be knitting for a long stretch just to avoid getting sore. But, my right hand and my left pinky are really starting to complain. My left pinky does nothing except curl around the base of my left needle to hold it steady, but apparently keeping it in that position for extended time periods is causing it to cramp up a little. I have had problems with tendonitis in my right hand and wrist before, so I don't want to get into a position where I've really aggravated it. So we'll just kind of play it by ear, I guess. I'd like to run the race through to the end, but I'd also like to be able to knit afterwards!

2. Evenstar Knitalong

I was shopping Haiti charity patterns on Ravelry and came up with the Evenstar mystery shawl. I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan so I was kind of hooked. There are tons of LotR patterns out there but it's rare to find one that (I think) really pays homage to the books, so I was excited for this one (even though it's going off the pendant from the movie. I was not a fan of the movies - in fact after the first one I refused to watch the rest - but I am willing to go along with their interpretations of the jewelry/swords/items from the books). Of course, I can't start it until the Olympics are over, and in fact I would like to finish Hanami before I go racing off to this one, but I am signed up and receiving the clues. I've also already benefited from some of the discussions on the Ravelry group already, so I don't mind being behind.

Recommended yarn is Blue Moon Silk Thread 2, which is kind of expensive, but in browsing around I became enamored of their Spirits Collection. In the Post That Wasn't I talked about several options I was considering. Then I started to doubt whether the Spirit collection was really what I should do, and I spent a long time debating Cloudy With a Chance from their watercolor line. I was going back and forth in my head - I liked the ethereal quality of the Spirits but I felt the lightness would be more suited to a Galadriel theme than an Arwen thing, the morning vs. the evening (as Gimli put it). However, in the end, I went with Jengu from the Spirits Collection. Lace has more impact in lighter colors, and I just really loved the concept behind the collection. My artistic justification is that I'm focusing more on the 'starlight' concept than the 'night' concept. (Why yes, I do think about this too much, why do you ask?)

Then I got to shop for beads, which I both love and hate, because a) I have not the yarn in hand and am going off an internet picture - and internet picture of it in wool, also, which is probably going to be very different from the way it will look in silk b) I have not the beads in hand, and can only look at pictures. I ended up ordering a small amount of four or five colors that I think will work, and when I have the yarn and the beads both in hand I can make a decision and order the full 3000 required for the pattern. (eek!)

Best of all, this is part of a whole series and there will be at least two more mystery shawls eventually. I'm excited! The swatch chart looks a little challenging but there was an excellent discussion thread on it that simplified things greatly, so I'm really looking forward to this piece.

One issue I do have, though, is needles. The project is a circular shawl and calls for size 3's; I usually use 4's for lace and I'm hoping that swatching will reveal that 4's are fine for this too. I'm still a pretty tight knitter, though not as supertight (I don't think) as I used to be. The reason I care is because KnitPicks interchangeables only go down to size 4 - if I need 3's I will have to buy some different length needles. I think I have two 24" size 3's and one 16" and that's it. I will need a couple more lengths to do this shawl. I really would rather just use 4's so I can just change to a different cable whenever it feels necessary. We'll see - swatching shall tell. The other thing I'm a little concerned about is winding the yarn. There were links on the Ravelry group to several different suggestions regarding winding silk lace, which I'm glad I read, because I would have just tossed it on my ball winder without a second thought. Apparently, this is not a good idea. Fortunately, Techmuse gave me a dohicky she found somewhere that I really love - it is a basically a spike with a flat bottom so that you can put (for example) a cone of yarn over the spike and the whole contraption swivels on the base, so even if you are knitting from the outside of the yarn cake (or if you are knitting from a cone) it's not hard at all to get the yarn off.

The other thing I thought about was maybe winding it (by hand, sigh) onto a spare bobbin from my spinning wheel and then sticking the bobbin on my lazy kate and knitting from there.

3. Aeolian Shawl

In the Post That Wasn't, I said that I finished the Aeolian Shawl except for the bind-off. I had an issue with the bind-off because the instructions say to use a double strand of yarn for the bind off. I'm knitting from a cone and I can't get to the other end of the yarn, so I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with this. I didn't want to just disregard the instructions without finding out why the instructions directed it that way. I sent the designer a message on Ravelry and she very kindly sent me an answer back. The double-stranded bind-off is traditional for Estonian lace and she said it's also supposed to help with rolling, and to give the edging flowers a bit more weight and pop. So, I think I could bind-off with a single strand and be fine. It bugs me to do it, though, the point about emphasizing the edge is well taken and I'd rather do it that way. However, I have no good way of doing this. I could estimate what I need for the bind-off, pull it off the cone, cut the yarn and do it with a double strand, but I have nooooooo idea how much yarn the bind-off will take. I could cut the yarn now, go to my ball winder and wind off half of what's left on the cone, but I hate to have that cut edge right at the bind-off. So, I still have some decisions to make, but it can wait until after the closing ceremonies.

4. Post Olympic Plans

I really want to get back to my long-neglected spinning wheel once the Olympics are over. I abandoned it last fall for deadline knitting and only after the Olympics are over will I finally be able to give up knitting time to spin. I have a ton of fiber in my craft room waiting for me, thanks to my purchases at MD Sheep and Wool and my Spunky Eclectic subscription. I really need to start making some progress or I am going to run out of room to put it all!! Though, I may have to give myself some time after the Olympics to let my twist hand recover.

Foiled

I have two rows left to go on the Aeolian shawl, and I have run out of beads. I am so disappointed! I crawled the floor and dug under the couch cushion (there were a lot under there as it turned out) but I couldn't scrap up enough to finish. I ordered more beads (the local shops may have restocked by now, but thanks to the snow that has been dumped on us, I figure the internet is still my best bet for getting it before June), but obviously, I had to find something else to work on in the meantime.

Enter Hanami - the least thematically appropriate thing to be knitting in the middle of a snowstorm. I've been wanting to knit this for ages and I got the yarn and pattern for my birthday last year. I was working on other things at the time and set it aside until the time was right.

In a fit of startitis a few months ago, I gave in and cast on for it, but it really just wasn't the right time for the project so it didn't go anywhere. The paltry few rows I had knit sat forlornly on the needle, waiting for me to get back to it.

Well, I picked it up again and it turned out to be the perfect post-aeolian knitting. It's rectangular so it has a set stitch count and let me tell you, when you have been doing rows of 600 stitches or more, rows of 100 go like lightening. I'm powering through as much of the basket weave section as I can while this feeling lasts, since I am not good with repeating the same pattern many times over. The following two pictures should give you an idea of how far I have managed to get over the last couple of days. The first one I took after my first evening of knitting, and the second one I took last night. I've done another full repeat since then (well, almost).





I'm still working during the day even though I'm snowed in at home, so I feel pretty good about this progress. I'm thrilled.

The Knitting Olympics commence on Friday and I really had not prepared to participate. I'm of two minds with these kinds of things - I think they sound like a blast, but I am so hard on myself I find it difficult to participate. Also, life doesn't stop while the Olympics are going on so I still have to plan around my normal life.

To that end, I have settled on a semi-flexible goal for the knitting Olympics, and one that requires a minimum amount of planning.

My Olympic goal is to knit 4 pairs of socks. Further, I want them to be socks for someone else, since I don't really have Olympic size feet (I wear a 6). I plan to start out with plain stockinette socks, and if I discover by some miracle that 4 pairs is not that much of a challenge after all, the last pair or two will be patterned socks of some kind, or maybe toe up - some kind of hurdle. I wondered if this was cheating, but decided it was akin to pacing myself in a race. I'll speed out of the gate and adjust my pace to keep up with the pack. (I know that's a summer Olympic metaphor, but I couldn't think of a proper winter one). I can take socks with me and knit them anywhere, so it seems like the perfect goal for my busy life.

I don't actually know if I have enough sock yarn to pull this off, but I think I should. I haven't checked the stash in a while. Anyway, my first pair will be for a coworker who asked for a heavily striped pair of socks. I am foiling his attempt to make life difficult for me by using self-patterning sock yarn. HAH. I have chosen Berroco Sox colorway 1420.



As I think about it, I have some Panda sock yarn that I got for my birthday or Christmas or something, plus two more skeins of Happy Feet sock yarn that I think also came from the same gift-giving occasion, plus one skein of Casbah left over from the Yellowstone Shawl, and I think I have another skein of Cherry Tree Hill somewhere.

Unfortunately, one of my sock needles broke the other day so that's a bit of a problem. I do have another set, but that set is in use. I may just have to put those socks on a lifeline (they are for me so it's no big deal) and rob the needles from them. I could try to finish the sock before Friday - you know, as a training exercise - but that would mean less time to knit on Hanami and I'm having too much fun to stop for anything less important than the Olympics.

My alpaca leaf lace shawl from Woodstock Knits has been keeping me warm throughout this cold and snowy weather.



I am really annoyed that I never finished those french press slippers - my feet could really use them right now!! I could finish them, but - I'd have to put down Hanami. Not happening, thank you very much!

ETA: My Jordana Paige Rio bag came from the Handbags for Haiti sale! It looks a little pitiful all empty but I'll soon have it filled up!

Famous Last Words

"Sure, I can knit that!"

Well, Grumpasaurus no. 1 was completed on Friday night, but some issues had arisen as to who would retain ownership of Grumpasaurus. Therefore, faced with a snow day on Saturday and the fear of bloodshed on Monday, I decided to settle the issue by creating a second Grumpasaurus.

Therefore I present Grumpasaurus:



And Grumpasaurette:



And now there shall be peace. I hope.

I've finished the final agave chart on the Aeolian shawl and I'm working on the edging set up. I was a bit confused at first, but as with most knitting directions, if you quit trying to understand and just do what it says, it starts to make sense. I have visions of finishing by next week, but I am trying to talk myself back into reality. That is to say, I am trying to remind myself of the reality of how even when you only have fifty rows to go, those rows get longer and longer and take longer and longer, and if you only have fifty rows to go but it takes you forty minutes to do a row...well. It seems unlikely that finishing will happen this week. I hope I don't run out of beads. I have already gone through the entire first tube of my order. These tubes are smaller than the Bead Obession tube and the beads themselves are less uniform - I keep having to pick out ones that are malformed or wierdly shaped. I'm close to the end but there are areas that are very heavily beaded, so--I have apprehensions. I am not at all worried about running out of yarn, on the other hand. I seem to have plenty left on the cone. I am so unworried that I am not deleting that last sentence. See. It's just sitting there. I'm not deleting it at all.

I have been knitting the shawl fairly faithfully. I just love the project so much that I don't even really want to work on anything else, so I haven't got much else to show. I have completed one plain stockinette sock in the Blacklight BFL from Fly Designs, and I cast on for the second one last night, but that's it. Hopefully, I will soon have the finished shawl to show and then I can be more interesting.

Nupp Time

Nupp, nuppy nupp, nupy nup, nuppy nuppy nuppy nupp

Am I the only one who hears that old Salt 'N Peppa song "Shoop" whenever nupps come up? I am, aren't I. Sigh.

("Nupp, nuppy nupp, nuppy nupp, nuppy nuppy nuppy nupp, Here I go, Here I go, Here I go again, Girls what's my weakness? YARN!")

Ahem.

So this weekend I got to the first row of nupps on the Aeolian shawl and...well. It wasn't pretty. I guess I was overconfident since I had no trouble nupping when I took Nancy Bush's workshop. It did occur to me that doing a 9-stitch nupp in a non-elastic yarn prone to splitting might be a little more difficult than doing 5-stitch nupps in 100% wool, but I didn't take the danger seriously. I thought I made the stitches loosely, I really did. I even went back a couple of times and put my needle back through and tugged just like Nancy said to do. But, I had a terrible time purling back across, and making several attempts at repairs as I knit back across. Some repairs worked out, some didn't. I'm a little frustrated at the sloppyness.

I also cracked open my next tube of beads, and found that the beads I ordered are not exactly the same as the beads I bought at Bead Obsessions. The color is the same (which is what I was really worried about), but these beads are a little bit more of the traditional donut seed bead shape, while the ones I had before were a little bit longer, just enough to look a bit cylindrical. I'm hoping it won't matter, and telling myself that even if it does, it's okay because I'm in a different section of the pattern so it will just add character. Ah, character. Is there a flaw you can't explain away?

I am at the second nupp row, so tonight I will be doing my best to pretend I am a relaxed knitter. I'm not, I'm a very tight knitter, but I will have to try or risk another row of ratty looking nupps.

Spring time is coming and so I picked up Hanami again last night and gathered all my pieces. I'd like to have a new shawl to wear for my Easter performance at church, so I'm hoping I can finish that one in time. The SO bought me some Sundara lace yarn some time ago that I am also thinking would make an absolutely beautiful lace shawl, and because I am stupid, I'm thinking of making the Triangular Summer Shawl from Estonian Lace. Because there is no way that nuups in silk could go wrong, is there? Of course not. I can't help it, though - the colors are just perfect and the shawl is so beautiful. The bit about sewing on the edging gives me pause, however. I am not good with sewing.

Grumpasaurus has been sitting around unloved all weekend. I'll get back to him soon, just...not right now. However, it's become clear to me that I am going to have to make at least two lest he get torn apart in the frenzy. It's good to be appreciated, I guess?

Still Playing Catch-Up

Well, it's all chaos and busyness around the CraftNinja household as usual. I don't know how people with families do it - I'm unmarried with no kids and I can barely keep up with myself and the dog.

I furiously knitted my late Christmas presents this month, finished them, and promptly left them sitting around the house for a week. I really need to get them out to the post office since they are already so severely late!

These are iPhone pics, so I apologize for the quality, but, you know - beats no pictures at all.

Frost Diamonds Shawl

I wanted this to be as wash and wear as possible, so I washed it normally but instead of pinning it out to block, I smoothed it out flat and shaped it. The corners wanted to flop inwards so I did pin those, but did nothing else. The end result looked fine so I'm satisfied. The yarn is Stahl Merino Mix and it's splitty, but it wasn't too much trouble. I got it on sale. It's a merino-microfiber blend, so it's machine washable and I hope it will be a bit durable. I just worry when I knit for non-knitters because I don't want to give them something that either makes a lot of work for them to take care of, or that they won't wear for fear of damaging it.

Anyway, since it was a worsted weight project it went pretty quickly, but I'm just now getting it in the mail today (at least, I hope I am - cross your fingers for me. years of post office lines have given me a natural inclination to avoid the place, even though those little automated machines they have now make mailing packages a LOT simpler.

For one of my other friends, I made a dish towel and some dishrags.

...Yeah, I think I owe her something better after being this late, but what can I do? I put a couple little non-knitted extras in the package for her.

I recently finished the pair of socks I have been working on since the beginning of time, also.

This pattern is the embossed stitch from More Sensational Knitted Socks and the yarn is Sereknity. It's a seacell-wool blend and I have to say...I didn't like knitting it. It felt dry in my hands and it was a little splitty. However, now that the socks have been washed they don't feel nearly so rough or dry, so maybe that's the trick. The colorway is beautiful, though - Black Forest Raspberry, I think.

One of my coworkers accused another coworker of being a grumpasaurus the other day, which I believe led to a discussion about the validity of 'grumpasaurus' as a word, and a google search resulted, which turned up this. I was immediately petitioned to knit one, and being tickled with the idea and pleased to be asked to knit, I started one.

I call this the 'angry pickle' photo. The picture is a little out of date; he now has a tail and one hand, and so looks considerably less pickle-like. I am considering knitting an army.

And, last but not least, I have started another sock, which is proceeding extremely rapidly, in great contrast to the previous pair. However, that tends to happen with me, socks proceed quickly until I get to the heel of the second sock, and then they sit in a bag for ages. But for now, I'm trucking along! This yarn is Fly Designs BFL superwash in colorway Blacklight.

Now, I must go and write some type of grovelling note to put in my packages so that I can get these things mailed off and gone. Wish me persuasive words so that my friends forgive me.

Happy New Year, I Think

I feel like in all the rush and hustle bustle and worrying, that I missed the whole Christmas/New Year season. Not a good feeling - I will have to try to find a way to get back in control next year instead of letting the prep control me. I have always loved Christmas, but the crush of obligations that come along with it as an adult has become kind of crippling. I have a lot of end-of-year responsibilities at work which, when added on to my church obligations and the way December always feels shortened because I travel to my parents', just makes it really hard to relax into the flow. I'm going to have to find a way to fix it.

Part of my brain went into a bizarre kind of denial at the beginning of the month, and I just plain didn't plan Christmas presents for a number of people. Because I'm gone over Christmas, most of my gift-giving for non-family members happens in early January anyway, so I just kind of put it aside. I got stuff for my immediate family and pretty much no one else. So, now I'm in kind of a scramble of catch-up gift giving. At the time it seemed totally reasonable, and now I'm sitting here thinking, holy crap. I'm totally late with presents. Guilt and panic descended and I have ended up with a slightly delayed version of It.

So now I am knitting some late presents as fast as I possibly can. This is incredibly rediculous to me since I could have had all this stuff nearly done if I had just thought about it before hand and knit while I was at my parents', but I didn't, so now I'm behind. And I can't even really say what I'm working on because the two people in particular I am speed-knitting for (who happen to both be named Rebecca) may or may not be reading this blog. I will only say that one set of gifts involved a lot of knitting cotton, leaving my twist hand too sore to reinstate Tuesdays are for Spinning last night. Instead Tuesday was for frantically knitting as fast as I could to try and get at least partway through the first repeat of Chart B. The good news is, that both projects are worsted weight and therefore appear to me to be flying.

One benefit is that I have been forced to halt work on the Aeolian shawl, which has prevented me from going insane while waiting for my beads to arrive. I needed a project to knit while I was gone, and I wanted something fairly attention-heavy, since I expected to have a lot of down time without much else to do while I was gone. I didn't plan very far ahead, so I had to plan on working with stash yarn. I knew I had two cones of Valley Yarns laceweight, one of Colrain lace in grey-green, and one of their alpaca-silk laceweight in eggplant. I looked for a shawl pattern that had different lace sections (I get very bored doing the same pattern over and over) and settled on the Aeolian shawl. I needed beads, though, so I went upstairs and looked through my beads. I found a set of beads that I picked up at Bead Obsessions because they were pretty, without any special project in mind for them. They went great with the purple alpaca-silk so I was set. Since I had plenty of yarn, I figured, might as well go for broke and make the big version (although, I question the wisdom of this decision a little bit, because the 'shoulderette' version looks plenty big to me, but, you know, why not). While I was gone I completed the 12 repeats of the first chart (so much for not wanting to do the same thing over and over) and started the transition chart. By the time I came home, it was very, very obvious that I was going to run out of beads. I called Bead Obsessions, and was told, very nicely, that they usually carry the beads I wanted, but they were out right now, and she gave me the name of another store I could try. I called them, and got the same response and the name of a third store. I called the third store and struck out there as well. I gave up and ordered them online, but I was worried I would go crazy before they arrived. Happily, since I have been working on Christmas projects, the beads have arrived before I needed them.

I took my long-term garter stitch project with me (the 3-scarf ruana from The Knitting Experience Book 1) to see Avatar this past weekend, and very nearly had a yarn crisis just before the movie started, but I got it sorted out just as the last preview played, right before they dimmed the lights. Phew. So I knit all the way through Avatar and put several inches on that project. I had heard a lot of conflicting opinions on Avatar before I went, and oddly, I agreed with all of them. Just as oddly, I didn't really have much else to say about the movie, except that I thought the bad guy was so over the top it was practically comical. Very unusal for me. Normally I am a font of opinions.

Anyway, that's where I am. Everything kind of on hold while I finish up last year's business. I am giving serious thought to ripping out Eris. I'm just not happy with it. I don't think the yarn is right, I don't think the decreases are right - I just don't like it. And I have finally admitted to myself that I really don't like the color. I bought it because it was on closeout and it was the only color they had and I lost my mind. This is a real problem since I bought I think I need to back up and reconsider. This is a frustrating conclusion to come to after having done all the work on the collar, I admit, but it's not bothering me as much as I thought it would.

I LOVE the Vivian sweater posted on the Rainey Sisters' blog. I love love love the way it fits. I am of course not as skinny as the recipient but I still really like the sweater so...I may put some thought towards that.

I don't have a very good handle for what makes a good sweater yarn. I like soft yarns, but I don't want the sweater to pill and look shabby right away, either. I just have a general impression that the best sweater yarns are 'hearty' yarns, and I don't generally do hearty so much...so I will have to put some more thought into this. I am definitely feeling in a sweater-making mood, though, so I will be giving something a shot sooner rather than later.

You know...after the gift knitting is done.

I'm also feeling like I should do something with some of my handspun. I'm thinking a scarf with a commercial yarn as the base in a fairly basic or neutral color (black?) with stripes of different handspun yarns. The colors of my handspun are all really different, though, so I don't know if I will have enough that coordinate to do that. At least, though, I am thinking of getting some black yarn and knitting it with stripes of some purple and white sparkly handspun that I spun from a Butterfly Girl batt some time ago.

I also received a Slice for Christmas, so I want to sit down and play with making some cards with it. I got so excited thinking about all the different shapes I could do. But, as usual, the mess in my craft room is holding me back a bit. I have to clear enough table space to have room to play, first. I don't want to move all the stuff down to my kitchen table again and end up making a huge mess down there that then migrates back upstairs the next time I have company.

I've also gotten my computer upgraded to Windows 7, which means it's no longer slower than my grandmother on IM (love you mamaw), and I have a copy of lightroom and photoshop installed, so I can get my photogrpahy act together. I have a lot of pictures to process, not only from my vacation but also from several church events that have happened already.

With so many possibilities I should feel inspired and invigorated and excited, but most of the time I just feel frustrated and overwhelmed because I can't do everything at once. The years seem so short to me, that it always feels like I didn't get a fraction done that I wanted to. I think I need to really examine what things I do make me happy (like knitting), and what things I just do because I feel like I should (like eating healthy, haha). In short, I feel like my life is too full to enjoy, and I am trying to cram stuff in to make every minute count. It is especially frightening to think that I feel like this now, while I am single and my time is at my own disposal. If I should ever have a family to manage, I might lose my mind!

I have many friends who are "gung-ho" kind of people, who want to plunge in and seize the day and all this other kind of stuff. The enthusiasm is catching and I appreciate those people in my life for the way they broaden my horizons and thinking. However, sometimes I get so caught up in their definition of what it means to live a full and satisfying life, that I become dissatisfied with my own life. However, living life the way they do would never make me happy (in fact, if I lived like most of them, I'd be downright miserable), and so I really need to work on remembering that it is okay to find happiness in my own way, and that no one is judging me but me. I need to slow down, not speed up. I need to do less, not more. I remember once reading a book when I was young, and I can't remember the title of the book, but it was about two children who ran away from home and lived in a museum and tried to prove a particular statue was carved by Michaelangelo. The girl in the story made it a point to learn one new thing every day. Near the end of the book, they met a lady, who said that it wasn't necessarily a good thing to learn something new every day. Sometimes you need to take a day to just let the things you've learned well up inside you, to think about and appreciate them instead of having a bunch of random facts rattling around in your head. That's a bit how I feel. I don't want to just let the days flow by and suddenly I look up and the year's half over, but I don't want to be cramming every minute, either - nor do I want to feel that time spent resting and recharging is wasted. I want to appreciate the things that are close to home and easy to do, as much as the things that are far away and a big adventure.

In short, I want to feel that the only time really wasted is the time I spend worrying and unhappy. So that is my goal for 2010 - don't worry, be happy.

Sucked In, and Just Plain Sucking

Blogging will continue to be sparse until the holidays are over (as an aside, the last name of one of my coworkers is 'holliday' and after working with her for this long, I have been rendered completely incapable of spelling holiday correctly on the first try).  I am deep in the bowels of my own version of the YH's "It," and sadly mine does not involve much knitting. 

 

I am mostly blogging, therefore, to report that I have been sucked in by the French Press Slipper Mania (FPSM) and I delightedly knit my first pair last week over a couple of days.  I was really, really excited, until I realized I had to sew them together (UGH) and weave in the ends (UGH!!!) and then felt them (which I have never done before).  I put it off a bit, and then finally sewed the tops of one slipper together one evening.  I then put it down and waited until the next day to sew on the foot.  Having fortified myself with some rest and denial, I returned to the slippers and sewed on the foot, and after that I felt so sure that I had gotten the hang of this seaming thing, that I went to sew the two tops of the second slipper.

 

And discovered...they didn't match.  I mean, they did match, and that was the problem.  You knit two slipper tops as written, you see, and then you knit two slipper tops with the directions reversed, so that in the end you have two sets of slipper tops that, when placed facing each other, have all the shaping matched when the wrong sides are together.

 

Well.  Apparently, I was too busy steeling myself for the sewing to notice, but I sewed two identical sides together, so...one of them is upside down, and I now have two identical sides to make the second slipper with.  CURSES.

 

Options:

 

-- Sew the two sides together with one upside down, felt, and hope for the best.

-- Knit another top, sew the second slipper together correctly, felt, and hope for the best.  If the best does not happen, knit a third slipper and felt it to match the correct one.  Have no idea how hard this would be to accomplish, having never felted before.

--Burn this pair and knit a new one.

 

I am currently leaning toward option 2.  I have enough yarn to knit another full slipper if necessary, I think - although it will be a bit of a challenge to figure out how to get three strands of yarn to come from a single ball!  Last time, I pulled from both the inside and outside of one ball, and the inside of the second ball, in order to make the three strands.