Big cup o’ fail

I’ve been knitting my current design project with Lorajean’s (Knitted Wit) beautiful Bling yarn, for what seems like weeks. Good thing I like it, because I get to use it again and again!

I first swatched with the storm cloud gray on the right, and figured out my stitch pattern. I left that on the needles, and started knitting my idea with the blue-gray. I knit for a long time, and on the needles, it seemed like all was well. I was basing the shape of this little shawl on a half-hex fichu, a shape I read about in an article by Jane Sowerby (author of the book Victorian Lace Today) in Knitter’s Magazine, Summer 2008. It’s basically 3 adjacent isosceles triangles, top points meeting at the center back neck. The shawl starts there and grows downwards, forming a half hexagon. The pictured shawls were all pretty long, which they’d have to be in order to have it be wide enough to wrap around oneself.

I know that there are triangular shawls that have increases at the beginning and end of both the right and wrong side rows, so I thought I’d try that to make a wider, shallower shawl. Sounds reasonable, right? I didn’t like my first edging attempt, so I decided to frog the 6 edging rows I had completed. When I took it off the needles, this is what I saw.

I blurred the stitch pattern because I just want you to see the shape. Hmmmm. If I’d wanted something akin to the collar of a maternity dress from the 1980’s, this would have sufficed. Square back, tie front. Ig. There was no way it was going to block into a satisfactory long-armed half hexagon.

This is what it looks like, now.

Yes, the one on the left. Again. I didn’t even take a new picture, because it’s back to square one. I’ve started another attempt with the same lace pattern and a different shape, this time in the storm cloud gray on the right. It reminds me of this:

The yarn is lovely to work with, but I would like to finish someday soon!

What else is going on? I had lunch on Friday at the Lantern Moon warehouse. They do a themed lunch about once a month. This month was a crab feast.

It was delicious, and I didn’t even break out in hives. (Thank you, Benadryl. It was worth your drug-induced afternoon nap.)

I helped Sharon & Cathy stuff gift bags for the Yarn Market News Smart Business Conference, which is going on right now in Portland. Lantern Moon hosted the opening reception, and these gift bags were headed there. There was some seriously nice swag in them, including straight and circular needles, and these shawl pins, which I love.

Hope your knitting is cooperating with you, more than mine was with me. Here’s to second (and third) chances!