Taaaa dahhh!!!
It’s taken me so long to reach my 200th post. This blog has been around since 3 May 2006. That’s more than 2 years! Wow. Can’t believe it’s been so long.
Anyway, I’ve decided to hold a contest, mainly for knitters/ crocheters or people who use yarn, somehow. Sorry for non-knitters.. I know there are many people who read my blog and aren’t knitters and have no use for yarn. I will try to cater for non-users-of-yarn for my next blog contest okie?? 
Anyway here are the rules and instructions:
- The theme of the contest is, “Knitted (or crocheted) items that have gone wrong.”
- Anyone can join. Even if you are not living in Australia.
- The prize will be a skein of Malabrigo Sock Yarn in the colourway “Stonechat”, kindly sponsored by Yarnandkisses. Here is a picture of it. Drooly drooly:
Here’s what it is : All you have to do is to write a story (doesn’t have to be too long, just precise would be good) about a project that you have started and realised it’s not going the direction you wanted it to go.
- You must include either a photo or a detailed description of the project, or both if you want to!
- You may write it in any style you like. Narrative, suspense, comedy etc etc…
- Injecting humour into your story would help too.
Ways to enter:
- Write a blog post on your blog and link it here by posting a comment ON THIS ENTRY. Not on any other entry, please. Even if this entry is no longer the current one, I still check past comments as they are highlighted everytime I log into WordPress. So don’t be worried that your comment or link will not be read.
- If you do not have a blog, that’s fine. You can email your story (title it “Blog contest”) to :
me [at] inoriz [dot] com
Replace the [at] with an @ and the [dot] with a .
- Otherwise, you are more than welcome to leave a comment with your story ON THIS ENTRY.
- Go around, spread the word about this contest among fellow knitters/crocheters/bloggers! The more the merrier!!!
- You do not have to submit your personal details. The winner will be notified and details will be collected only then.
- The contest will be open for 3 weeks. Ending Friday, 20 February 2009.
- Judges’ decisions are final! Yes there will be more than one judge so don’t throw rotten eggs in my direction if you don’t win!
Go forth and think of your stories! I shall start the ball rolling by posting mine!
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The Bootie Gone Wrong!
When Sunshine was a wee little newborn, I was worried about her feeling cold (it was cold in the hospital room) as she kept kicking herself free from her swaddle. The midwife then handed me a knitted cardigan for Sunshine to put on. The cardi was soooo teeny and adorable.
Most importantly, it made me want to knit for my darling daughter. And that desire only grew stronger and stronger each and everyday I held my precious bundle.
As a Chinese (No, I’ve never been to China though but my ancestors were from China), I believe in and follow post-maternity ‘guidelines’ that have been passed down from generation to generation. They call this the ‘confinement period’. And it is what it’s stated – being confined for a month indoors. Both baby and mummy.
This is to prevent diseases from getting into us since we are most vulnerable during this time. It also prevents us from catching a chill from the cold winds outdoors.
So during that month, I wanted badly to pick up knitting. But how? I cannot go out!
So I asked Nad to please, go to the library and borrow books on knitting. Especially knitting for beginners.
He went and borrowed this awesome book and I loved him so much for being spot-on choosing such a perfect book.
Then, I got my God-sis to come over to teach me the basic knit and purl. She also taught me how to cast on and bind off.
Then, I asked Nad to go to spotlight to get some wool and a pair of ‘Size 6′ needles.
And I got started! I knitted the simple bootie in that book. It was my very first project and I was so excited! It had yarn overs and decreases and all those funky stuff! Woo hoo!
And then I stitched it up!!! Woo HOO!!
And this was how it looked like:
Hey! Not bad for a beginner! Right!?
Except that when you compare it to how a normal bootie should look like:
It’s TOO BIG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GIGANTINORMOUS!!!!!!!!
Dear beginner knitters (and even seasoned ones alike), check your pattern if “Size 6″ needles refers to US6 or Metric 6mm. Because, Huge . Difference .
In Australia, the metric system is used for needle sizes while in USA (where the designer lives and where the book was published), they have their own sizing guides. It’s again, different in the UK. So check your sizes! US6 is equivalent to 4mm. Which is 2mm smaller than the 6mm needles I was using! You can check sizes on this chart.
Anyway, it was a very funny and good experience for me. The lone bootie (no way I’m knitting the other side for a giant baby!) was left hanging by the cot and used as a handkerchief dispenser.
It actually fits Sunshine somewhat now.
Hehhehehe.
Have fun and good luck to all participants! Come on! Flood the comments!
January 30th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
LOL, I don’t think I have any stories to tell but yours is hilarious! Sunshine looks so cute
January 31st, 2009 at 1:51 am
I don’t have a photo. You’ll see why once you’ve read the story. I’ve knit all my life – well since around age 5 which is a looooong time ago. Once my roommate in college’s mother came to visit and saw all my lovely sweaters and asked my roommate would she like her to knit her a sweater. Roommate said, “I didn’t know you could knit”. Sure, said Mom, no problem. So we picked out a pattern and home Mom went to start the knitting. One day roommate gets a note from her mother saying the sweater is done, packed up, and will be mailed shortly, but there was something wrong with it that she could not figure out – maybe Elaine can figure it out.
Uh oh we thought. Uh oh was right. When the package arrived and we unpacked it, I realized she had sewn one of the sleeves into the neck opening rather than the armhole. In order to wear it, you would have to keep your arms in a permanent semaphore position, with your neck craned way over to one side. Not good.
I offered to remove the sleeve and sew it back on in the correct place but roommate thought it was ugly anyway (which is was). It “got lost unfortunately” in the end of year packing
And my baby is Rachel also – but she’s a senior in college. Yours is a cutie in one bootie.
January 31st, 2009 at 3:11 am
My biggest knitting mistake was a cabled vest that I’ve since lost. I didn’t swatch, of course, and just picked out a lovely tweed yarn that I’d gotten on sale a few years previously. Well, by the time I got to sewing it up, I realized that it would have fit me only if I was pregnant with triplets! The length was just fine, but the width was enormous!
My second biggest knitting mistake was with a circular baby blanket last year. I forgot to do one important set of increases in the first five rows, and when it was done, it was more a tee-pee than a flat blanket!
January 31st, 2009 at 6:50 am
my story starts here: http://584blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-be-square-and-heel.html
and ends here: http://584blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/sockly-lessons-learned.html
great contest idea!
January 31st, 2009 at 8:09 am
My mother was a knitter,
But now she is too old,
Her hands are very gnarled,
Especially when it’s cold.
I thought I’d make a pretty scarf,
To wrap around her neck,
I picked a lovely woolen yarn,
Expensive, but what the heck!
It knit up quickly, one, two three,
She was so very pleased
It wound around a couple of times
Or hung down to her knees.
I am a lot taller than Mom,
And I didn’t really figure.
That what fits me fine will not fit her,
Because I’m so much bigger.
But that’s not the problem, I have to admit,
I just called that a feature.
I said it’d keep her really warm,
And make her a gorgeous creature.
But that was not the worst thing yet,
Dropped a stitch, which I didn’t see,
Until one day when she put it on,
And it was shaped like a V.
The dropped stitch had become undone,
Right down to the very start.
And now the long scarf was twice as long,
It no longer looked so smart.
My Mom is such a happy gal,
She said don’t feel like a dummy,
When I die, just wrap me in it,
And I’ll become a mummy!
True story (with only a little poetic license)
And I really really love the yarn. I’m a purple girl!
January 31st, 2009 at 8:57 am
Lol, i have done the same thing with a bootie before! it was Huge! The one i was thinking of though was when i first started knitting (i still need to go and frog it) I figured i would make a poncho, something good to start as a larger project after a bag , basic hats and scarves. The pattern did not offer much help in finished sizes or for fitting, well i figured i am not the most tiny girl (big boobs, lol) so i knit it in the large size. I had to go get more yarn twice (this is the most expensive poncho in history!) and when finished it could not even be worn slouchy on the shoulder. We are talking large tree skirt here! (which i have even considered!) I have come a long way since.
January 31st, 2009 at 10:26 am
My story is similar to most people’s: a matter of size. I’ve been knitting, on and off, since I was a kid, but had never made a garment for anyone else. Then I met my first boyfriend. I was so in love, I thought I’d knit him a jumper. Bought some gorgeous soft squishy yarn and a pattern, and started knitting. I didn’t want him to know till it was finished so I didn’t take any measurements. There seemed to be plenty of yarn so I couldn’t have finished yet. Kept knitting – I don’t remember what made me think I’d knitted enough. Gave it to him as a lovely surprise. Well it would have made a good dress, it was so long. He was lovely about it, and even wore it … at least when he was with me.
January 31st, 2009 at 10:54 am
Here’s my story (sorry it’s so long): This was back when I was a beginner. My good friend’s fiancee asked what I could knit. I told him “anything.” He challenged me to knit a thong. I had seen the one in knitty, so I challenged back that if I knit a thong, he would have to wear it, in public. He laughed and agreed thinking that I would never bother. Heh heh heh. >:)
So I made one. Actually, I made it into a speedo knowing that he would never in a million years agree to wear a thong. They were planning on going to Greece for their honeymoon, so to make it a little extra embarrassing, I put an intarsia greek flag across the butt. (I wanted to make sure he would fit in on the Greek beach.) The whole time he knew nothing about it. To figure out the fit my friend used her hands to sort of “shape” his butt to give me an idea.
Well…I had never used elastic yarn before (Cascade fixation) so I ended up having it stretched as I worked on it. It could only go smaller, not bigger. And it was hard to get the fit from my friend’s hand gestures. The suit ended up waaaay to small and there was a lot of butt crack showing. She got a photo of it in the hotel, but has sworn on her marriage vows never to show them to anyone. He is jewish and her family celebrates Christmas, so when they go to her mom’s house they use it as a stocking. It’s now called “The Channukah Hammock.” (It’s even the right colors!)
January 31st, 2009 at 12:57 pm
When I first learned to knit I wanted to learn all the different beautiful patterns in my shiny new stitch dictionary. I also wanted to make a scarf for my hubby. I know – a sampler scarf! Perfect! I decided on a gorgeous forest green worsted weight yarn and set off on my adventure. After the first section (garter) I showed it to him. He loved the yarn but wanted it wider. Okay, I ripped it out. Cast on with extra stitches and did the garter again. No, he wanted it wider, so it was really warm! No problem – I wanted him to like it! Re-cast on again with yet more stitches and did the garter section a third time. By this point the yarn was getting ragged, but my tension was looking great!
Hmm… if it’s this wide, I think to myself, I’m going to run out of yarn. So I grabbed some black fuzzy stuff to make a stripe with between each stitch panel. Each section advanced in difficulty. I went to stockinette, to moss, to basketweave, each with a generous black spacer. I was SO proud of myself! I envisioned tackling cables and … then I stopped to actually look at it. Not only was the black furry acrylic hideous and unmanly, the “scarf” was about 2 feet across!
Boy, did I pick the right man. He swore he loved it, and asked me to make into a carseat cover. I refused, on the grounds that his car deserved better, ripped it out, and threw the black away. The green has been recycled into some project or other.
He still likes his scarves extra-wide, but at least now I know when to stop casting on!
January 31st, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I took a trip last week where I took yarn for three potential projects and ran into problems with each of them. I have blogged about here in Knitting Lessons. http://shortly24.wordpress.com/
January 31st, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I was thirteen, and decided to crochet my first project from a book with directions. Being impulsive and wanting to start right away, I began the pattern. But I did not take into account gauge! My hat ended up about double what it should have been! I was so hurt! My mother came and helped me put a ribbon through it so it would stay on my head, but it was a total flop.
I believe it is still in our dressup box, but it definitely isn’t being used as a hat- rather it’s become a purse!
February 1st, 2009 at 2:28 am
Well I just posted this yesterday and it fits with your contest theme about something going wrong. I wish I had seen your rules first I may have tried to get the story a little funnier. Anyway the scarf gone wrong is about halfway down the page in this blog post
http://gimpykatk.blogspot.com/2009/01/friday-finished-frogged-and-february.html
I have had many other wrong, just wrong issues but I haven’t saved all the photos. Bummer.
February 1st, 2009 at 7:20 am
I didn’t think I could remember any stories about my projects going wrong, but as I was writing up a blog post this morning I realised that it did in fact qualify. Sorry it’s a bit long… I’m incapable of keeping things short.
http://crafty-devil.blogspot.com/2009/02/tale-of-three-socks.html
February 3rd, 2009 at 12:05 am
Mine is an “I know, I know” sort of story. In middle school, I think, I decided to knit myself a sweater. I knew the basic knit and purl and even how to cable. My mother had one of those stitch dictionaries with jillions of different cable patterns. I was going to make a pullover with some cables on it with a simple drop shoulder so it was basically 2 rectangles and some sleeves. Easy, peasy.
My mother was a very experienced knitter, but who needed her help? I went and bought some nice wool yarn, and we had lots of pairs of needles and I knew that worsted weight, which is what my mother always used, knit on size 8′s and we had lots of pairs of those. So far so good. I asked the lady in the store how much to buy and she told me (and even offered to put a couple away in case I ran low) Great. She asked if I needed a book or wanted to look at patterns. No – I was all set. HA.
So I picked out a very complex cable from my mother’s book, and I didn’t bother reading things about the chart. I had the general idea, although I thought I understood it perfectly. I cast on and away I went. The ribbing went well and I even knew about using smaller needles for the ribbing. Onto the body. I started the cable and it looked funny, but I figured, you really needed to do a lot for it to start looking the way the picture looked in the book. So I just kept knitting, following the chart. What I hadn’t realized was that it just showed the right side rows since the wrong side rows were just purls. So I was doing twists on every row which was harder than hell since I’m trying essentially to wrestle the stitches that I’d just crossed in one direction, into the other direction and they didn’t want to do that. After I’d knit for several weeks and had several inches, I took a good look and I had a total mess. No other word for it. I finally broke down and asked my mother and she told me how to read a chart and pointed out that in the beginning of the book there were instructions describing just that – DUH.
I learned all about frogging from that experience. It’s funny now. It wasn’t funny then even though my mother refrained from saying something like I told you so.
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:07 am
I once ordered some yarn in two colorways that I wanted to blend in a crochet blanket. They just never looked right together, so i’d keep ripping it out and trying a different pattern. I finally gave up and the yarn sat around for years. I finally got them together, but it took a different craft and changed from a blanket to a sweater. In fact, there are now three knit sweaters. One in each colorway by itself, and one with the two together, No pics of the blanket attepts, but this blog post shows the sweaters.
http://kitten-with-a-whiplash.blogspot.com/2008/05/2-4-me-one-for-mom-or-tale-of-when-two.html
February 4th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I tried to make the Pocketbook Slippers for the first time and totally misread the pattern! Blogged about it here:
http://salihan.com/2008/04/knitting-podcast-slippers-cat-beret/
And you can see my adorable cat wearing the slipper on her head!
February 5th, 2009 at 5:20 am
I was a crocheter first, then a self taught knitter, and once I had sat down and (so I thought) figured out how to knit – I decide to make my brother a scarf in his college colors – grey and blue (which I just so happened to have as random balls of unmarked yarn). I cast on and was switching back and forth from the grey and blue – not really keeping track of the amount of striping. I got ambitious and decided to add his initials and intarsia GU into the end of the scarf and dilligently plugged away. I finally finished the scarf and went to ‘block it” – but for some reason it wouldn’t work!
There were a few things I didn’t understand then, but do now:
a.) All my stitches were horribly twisted
b.) my intarsia had holes b/c I didn’t know how to really ‘connect it’ to the rest of the scarf
c.) the entire scarf was stockinette and therefore no amount of blocking would ever uncurl it!
d.) it was awful and ugly.
I wrapped it up and gave it to him for Christmas anyway. *shakes head* I’m sure he’s never worn it.
Here’s my ravelry link to the GU scarf :
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/yarnkat/cvt-scarf
And it looks so much better in the picture than it does in person!!
February 6th, 2009 at 12:55 am
This happened when I was in Brownies, the little girl version of girl scouts (ages 6-8). Our leader was sort of a jerk. Although her daughter was our age and in the troop, the leader really did not have any idea of what were realistic projects (or fun projects) for little kids. One year she came up with the idea of each of us knitting a scarf for Xmas for patients in a local veteran’s hospital. We would bring our scarfs the week before Xmas and sing some songs and present them. Cool. Except she didn’t know how to knit and neither did any of us.
My mother did knit and she told the leader that she thought that was too ambitious for a group of a dozen girls who would have varying levels of coordination, but the leader persisted and had already told us about it and we were all hot to do it. My mother came in and taught us each how to knit. After a month, no one had more than a few inches done and most had less. Everything looked like a mess. But by now the leader had told the hospital staff that we were coming and bringing hand-made scarfs for the vets and so we were really in a pickle. My mother sat down and finished each of the scarfs. At first she was going to rip out what had been done but everyone was upset by that, and so she left all the inch or two messes and then knit beautiful long scarfs.
Basically she knit day and night. She knit riding to work, she knit while we talked, she knit while walking and she probably knit in the toilet. Finally she had them all done and brought them to our meeting. She told us all that our knitting (which looked like crap) was what made each scarf special and unique. Hopefully the recipients were so bowled over by our cuteness that they did not mind getting something that looked great except for the beginning. I guess they could tuck them into their coats and no one would see our contributions.
February 13th, 2009 at 3:44 am
How could I resist a “things gone wrong” contest?!? I can’t! Go see my entry kadezmom.blogspot.com
February 14th, 2009 at 4:45 am
My second project as a knitter perfection pants for my squishy baby Athena.I had to rip them back 3 times because the crotch lloked like a vagina and I wasnt having it look like that.They finally turned out right and when she grew out of them I sold them to a momma with a new baby as Athena was our last and I cried but they were so pretty I wanted them to be used.Hugs Darcy
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/KnottyKnitter40/perfection-pants
February 16th, 2009 at 6:42 am
i wanted to make a toy pattern for all the children i love this past christmas but had never knit one before. everything about making a softie was new and odd but eventually .. after messing up the first one so badly that i had to throw it away (really! ouch). i kind of became a monkey moo factory for about a month. i made 16 of them (17 including the yukky one)! i figure the monkey was appreciated cause every child called to tell me the name she/he had given it! here’s the link:
http://knittedtoybox.blogspot.com/2008/04/monkey-moo.html
diane
February 18th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
One year for Christmas I wanted to knit by boyfriend a pair of felted clogs. I didn’t have a pattern and even though I had never really felted anything in the washing mashine before, I thought that it would be something I could just manage to do for him. I spend quite some time choosing the colours, since he dosen’t ever really want to wear anything on his cold, cold feet, and finally found some really expensive, but beautiful, grey wool and alpaca yarn, and some greenish soft, soft wool at the top (around the ankle).
Even though I could have knit in front of him without him noticing, I didn’t want him to see anything of the project, so I knit on it anytime he was out – for his run, visiting friends, late home from uni,… They were huge, but so are his feet (European size 46), so I still thought everything would be perfect.
Then I did the felting – and nothing happened. So I tried once more. Still nothing to speak of. So I washed them with all my normal clothes and something happened – they turned out petite. I pulled and pulled, but there was nothing to do. They would not give an inch.
I ended up showing them to him, and he laughed, thanked me for the effort and told me that my feet are always much colder so perhaps I could use them. Well, not even that – my tiny feet (size 35) couldn’t get into them. I gave up and threw them in a basket of felt – my expencive present was destined to become felted flowers or something.
By luck the boyfriend showed my misluck to a friend of his, who has a young daughter. She was only 5 and they were to big for her, but she took them, wore them, and slowly made them a bit bigger so that she was able to wear them until she was 8… I’m glad someone got to use the most expencive slippers I ever made. (And I have made others, but boyfriend hasn’t got any yet – I’m too scared about knitting for him, I gues…)