Reality Check

In which this..... becomes a hat.... but not without a lot of lessons learned. Ah, the learning curve - gotta love it.

Of course, it probably has nothing to do with the fact that I'm just trying to teach myself, do it myself - diving right in without having a clue. You get the picture.

There's a certain satisfaction to teaching yourself something - I taught myself to ride a bike, on my friend Darren's "boy" stingray.... down at the corner, where no one could watch me fall and learn. You know, get on the bike, propped up by having one foot on the fence, push off and see how far you get.... eventually, you either give up for that day because you've slammed your private parts into that stooopid cross bar one too many times, or skinned your knee, or ripped your pants. But, the next day.... there you are, down at the corner again, begging Darren to try and ride his bike. Learning the hard way, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But, yes, I did teach myself to ride a bike.

Intarsia - this I cannot teach myself. And.... I Do Not Like It. This I have learned.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting on Mom's couch, looking through her new Knitting on the Edge knitting book, and the hubby sees a pattern for an intarsia snowflake - "you could put that on a hat for me" he says. "Sure I can!" I say. I mean, it's a simple two color snowflake - how hard can that be? I'll just google intarsia and get out that back issue of IK that has the article on how simple, elegant, and easy it is to knit intarsia. Piece of cake.

So, I swatch to get gauge (really, I did!), cast on, get my brim and edge done, and start the intarsia part - about three stitches into I figure out this is not something I'm gonna like - but I keep at it. About know, the hubby looks over and says, "Cool, my hat! Will it be ready for me to wear tomorrow?" Uh, yeah - No, that's not gonna happen - I can tell right now.

Fast forward to the next day, sitting in the LYS, where I'm about 3" into this sucker, the intarsia looks like poop, and somehow my gauge is way off because this thing is HUGE. Tarter Sauce!!! That's it - intarsia-smarsha - I quit. Not even any pictures of the poopiness to show you, because I just ripped it out then and there.

Ok - back home.... get out another hat I know fits, made with the same yarn.... actually count the stitches casted on, and start over.

Perfect fit (he likes them close fitting, but not "tight" so he can even wear them under one of his many different helmets if he wants, so it looks small, but really it fits.... very specific specifications, doncha know) - and not even a bad snowflake. The hubby likes it and is happy - that's what counts.

Oh.... that snowflake? It's duplicate stitched on... I told ya - I'm not doing the intarsia thing - any more!

OK, it's probably like having kids, where you swear you won't do THAT again, then, next thing ya know, there you are again, in the birthing room, wondering how you got there.... oh yeah..... Some sweet picture in knitting magazine will tempt me to try intarsia again.... someone slap them about then, will ya?!

I was probably getting a little uppity and full of myself after Rogue. Needed a Reality Check.