Knit, Rip, Repeat

Yesterday I started knitting on a simple colour work winter hat for myself. The plan was to use the dark welsh and some of my white shetland that I had spun up. I picked the general design Monday night and was ready to cast on Tuesday morning. I had decided that I would do a provisional cast on so that I could go back and do the ribbing after finishing the rest of the hat. This was because the last winter hat I made for myself had problems with the ribbing and I ended up cutting it off and redoing it after. Unfortunately I just couldn't get a nice, even tension when I started with a provisional cast on (and I tried several times.)

Finally I started with a 2x2 ribbing using the shetland on smaller needles. This seemed to work and my tension was nice and even. I carried on and completed one repeat of the pattern:



Then I tried it on... It fits onto my head but not comfortably. It is too tight. All of my careful calculations failed to take into account that colour work is a lot less stretchy than plain knitting. Sigh. I will rip out and redo.

I might even have started re-knitting this hat today, but my Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift arrived so I was able to cast on for a pair of Endpaper mitts. I decided to knit a pair of fingerless mitts in part because it has been chilly and my hands have been stiff and in part for practice. I bought a kit for the Autumn Rose Pullover at the Knitter's fair but I really don't want to screw it up. So I've decided to knit a pair of mitts using the same yarn and the same gauge to get a feel for it. These mitts will actually be a complicated sort of gauge swatch:



The problem is that I chose to use a peach coloured yarn and the shetland black. With the black as the dominant colour the peach just looks off white. So I'm ripping these out too and I'm going to make the peach the dominant colour.

Practice is good (or so I keep telling myself.)