Knitting Fail

So, some friends had a baby in January. When someone has a baby, I make a blanket. I talked to one of them and decided to wait until the baby was born to make the blanket. They didn't know the sex of the baby, but the names they had chosen were both related to specific colors. So... I thought it would be cool to incorporate the color into the blanket.

I went over a couple of patterns and decided to make the Baby Dotty blanket again. It's a fair isle pattern that looks complicated, but it it actually pretty simple--it just requires making and cutting a steek. Again, it isn't as complicated as it looks.

Well, first, I had issues with tension. I tend to knit tight and it is easy to knit fair isle too tight. I've done it before but I was always able to find ways to compensate. It started out fine and then got looser. This was frustrating because despite knitting tight, my stitches are usually freakishly consistent.

Nut, okay... I'll deal with it. So, I finished it. It was sloppy, but the colors were gorgeous (chocolate brown and light blue). I used a friend's sewing machine to tack the steek and then cut it.... and then I cut one of the floats. Fair isle knitting requires you to carry yarn int he back--the carried yarn is called a float--loose pieces of yarn on the back of the blanket. So, yeah, I cut three of them. After some thinking, a friend and I came up with a solution. And it seemed to work. (I used thread and a sharp needle to weave thread in and out of the yarn to join them together.)

I went to work on the edges. I cut the steek down to two stitches like the book said. last time I made it, I didn't cut it that close. This time I did. Next time? I won't do that. As I was pining the border down, I noticed some loose stitches. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the steek was unravelling. Hoping it was nothing more than me being worried, I kept going. And then I threw it in the washer.

Guess what?

I was wrong. It unraveled. Months of knitting and work and effort, ruined. I was sick to my stomach.

I know there was worse things in the world, but this last week was one of those where it felt like everything I touched I broke. And I guess this time, I really did break something.

Ugh.