Lisa: calorimetry

Instead of going to the yarn store like I wanted to last week, I forced myself to dig out an unfinished project I already had. The girls and I all bought yarn to knit Calorimetry together, but after a few introductory knitting sessions, our impetus kind of fizzled out. I thought I could finish mine pretty quickly, thus satiating my need to knit AND allowing me to figure out any tricky bits in advance so that I can help the girls with the pattern if any of them ever decide they want to work on it again.

Here's the finished product, which (in spite of the unflattering picture) I really like. Basically, it's a sort of headscarf that buttons at the back of the neck, so that your ponytail or whatever can stick out the back.

The pattern says "It is very important to obtain the correct gauge for this piece," so instead of just skipping the boring gaugeing altogether, I went ahead and knit the little square with 5mm needles and the yarn thickness that the pattern calls for. My square was too big, so I figured that if I knit the whole thing on 4.5mm needles instead, it would turn out about the right size. I didn't bother gaugeing again, which was a mistake. My first product was the humongous thing in the photo below.

I started again, but this time cast on 80 stitches instead of 120. The pattern uses short rows, working in a 2x2 rib until a certain number of stitches remain on the end of each row. I knitted 7 instead of 15 of the repeated decrease rows, and just did enough increase rows so that I had the right number of stitches on the end of the row again. That probably makes no sense if you don't knit or haven't read the pattern, but suffice it to say that this was a pretty easy pattern to knit and to alter. My second attempt was a success--the version on the bottom of the photo below turned out to be exactly the right size. I found a button in my tin that fit the buttonhole, stitched it on, and it was ready to go!

Knitting time (if you only knit the smaller version): four hour-long dramas with no commercials.