failing seems to be in the water....

so before i start my own tale of fail, i would like to comment on megs last post. as i was sitting enjoying a good ole 'merican beer on the fourth o july, i got the notification that meg had posted. being a good sister and faithful blog follower, i read it right away. and i loved the chick! and i thought was a better way than to prove that it was indeed a chick then to ask everyone i was with what they thought! so without telling them what it was supposed to be, i passed around my phone. everyone was on the chick bandwagon until my dear sweet bf. and ill admit, i was shocked at his response. "its a monkey." wtf. for real? but then he explained it. and i got it. maybe it was the overabundance of 'merican beer, but this is what he, and now i, see.....

(smile added by moi)

get it?

anyways, moving on to my own fail. so for my birthday my mom got a goody bag from The Embraceable Ewe Yarn Shop. Inside was the perfect knitting gift: 3 skeins of light blue yarn, a set of bamboo circular needles and Teva Durham's Ballet T-Shirt pattern. i was very excited and set about winding the yarn- which is a fail i have already blogged about- i think - if not imagine someone w too much yarn and not enough wine. anyways. mom finally wound it up for me at home and i was sent back to dc to knit. however, the first time i read the pattern i decided i had no idea what they were talking about and set it out of my mind. but after finishing that lil pink octo, i decided i could take anything on and decided that the long weekend would be a great time to start!

so i set off on my sweater. and just like mom said, it wasnt that hard. and i was feeling pretty stoked.
see, i figured out that when it says pm i dont have to run out to the store to get markers, i can just make em out of my extra yarn!


and when it says to count rows, there's really no need for a row counter. its totally easier to just write all over your pattern! (i know what youre thinking, what do you do it you want to knit this pattern again?? havent figured that part out yet.)

my biggest problem was knitting the sleeve. i figured out the whole casting on extra stitches on a row, but my arm hole was a little effed up, which hopefully is easily fixable. but here was the problem. it was about this point, 3 nights worth of knitting i believe, that i realized my sweater was the wrong size. i was knitting a cute cap sleeve ballet t for a 5 year old. thank god steve-o just had a baby girl! well that was a sad realization, but instead of tearing the shirt apart, i decided it would be worth it to just finish it up and make sure that next time i wont have as many mistakes....

that line going vertically is supposed to be in the center of the shirt. however, i didnt read the directions completely before starting and missed the whole bit about placing markers in the middle of the front and back on your very first row. oops.

the underneath of this sleeve wasnt that bad. however the increases are supposed to line up differently.

and this ones just a fail all the way around.

so im excited that i finally made something wearable, but it kinda sucks that its only for a small child. but i guess we're all here to learn, right? and the upside is that marm bought enough yarn that i can make another one. although im afraid that my mistake was not being able to knit to the correct gauge. which means everything piece of clothing i make will be child sized. haha. so stay tuned for my howekidsknit etsy shop!