Knitting Fail!

My confidence in knitting, and in life as well, has seemed to risen steadily in the last month. I have learned new techniques, such as knitting in the round, a few new ways to increase and decrease, and how to incorporate crochet into my projects.

However, the world will never let you gain too much confidence before it reminds you that, in fact, you aren't all that.

The last week of school was a strange week in my life, to be sure. I found myself trying to get paperwork done, trying to finish report cards, trying to secure a job back on the East Coast, and trying to knit eyeballs. It was a very good thing that I rallied Marmie in to help me knit those suckers because even with my "report card, eyeball, report card, eyeball" rotation, I found myself knitting those suckers at a pace that was not quite fast enough.

I pulled my first all-nighter since college and finished knitting the last eyeball at 6 am, the morning of the last day of school. I finished filling them during recess and then at the end of the day, surprised the kids with a truly unique end of the year gift! We had a tearful goodbye but it was comforted with 22 happy kids with 22 amazing eyeballs! Just see for yourself!After completing a project like that, successfully pulling an all-nighter, and getting a great job back in Boston, how could I not be a little excessive on the hubris? I could conquer the world! So this week I sat down to "just knit something." This whole project started when I had requested that my mom knit a little chick as a gift for me and she commented that she was not teaching me to fish. So I thought what better project to rock right now then my own little chick! This would show that I could in fact knit whatever I wanted and it would turn out pretty damn awesome.

Ha. Enter hubris' good friend humility. I was feeling confident as I knit in the round because it was so much easier. However, this little guy, whose pattern I found on Ravelry.com, needed a little more skill than I was able to render.

Example 1: The tail. Not sure what is going on there but it looks more like I fastened a knitted rudder to his behind, even attaching it a little off-center. My chick will now swim in circles.

Example 2: The head. What do you mean 1/3 of the way down the body to make the head?? If that is the case then the beak will be ginormous! Which brings me to...

Example 3: The beak. I don't know how the suggested pattern for the beak was ever expected to work but when I tried to attach it, my chick ended up looking more like Steve Martin in the movie Roxanne. So I attempted to make a smaller one, reducing the stitches. Fail. Tried using a different size needle. Fail. Thought about just attaching a construction paper beak but couldn't bring myself to do it.

What I have is a reminder from life. No, I cannot do everything perfectly. My chick looks weird. In fact, when I had company over recently I hid him away in a basket instead of proudly displaying him on the side table where all my clever creatures have resided before being sent off to their owners. Yes life, I remember. I'm still learning.