Needs Must

That was a lot of knitting around that chocolate turkey.  It's all destined for local charity.  Very local.  There's a leak in the roof of our National Historic Landmark church building and the parish, like everyone else these days, is strapped.  A clever parishioner came up with the idea of a Christmas market to raise some cash.  So, with the conviction that if you make it they will buy, The Princess and I have embarked on an epic journey of small knitted objects.  She, with a stash of hats (sorry Afghans for Afghans, charity begins at home), is ahead of the game.  I, on the other hand, must start knitting as fast as I can, and we all know that's not very fast.

The item that is currently consuming my attention is the pink thing.  It's supposed to be the Winding River Cowl from Knitting Daily. Already at the time of the turkey picture I was having issues.  It calls for a three needle bind-off and I really think it wants to be grafted. What, after all, is the point of making the cables reversible if the piece itself is not, in point of fact, going to be able to be reversed.  

The pattern tells you to end the cowl at row 14 of a 28 row pattern repeat. Let me explain a little bit about the construction of this thing. The cables alternate position, one set (the row 14 crosses) lining up on the right of the piece and one set (the row 28 crosses) lining up at the left. By ending with row 14, I'll have two right side cable patterns in a row.  That can't be right. 

Let's not even go into the lack of joy I'm finding in a 12 over 12 cable.

These are annoying, but I can work with or around them.  I can, for example, refuse to end the piece at row 14, ending at row 28 instead and then Kitchener the ends together. There are, however, other issues which are my own fault. I chose a yarn that was drastically incompatible with the recommended yarn (one skein of Handmaiden Lady Godiva at 250 meters, 20 stitches/4 inches instead of two 150 meter skeins of Berrocco something or other at 22 stitches/4 inches). (Let's not think about how ironic it is that I, the world's tightest knitter, am actually getting the recommended gauge for my yarn.)  I knew it would be wider than specified in the pattern, and at the time I started it, estimated it would be shorter, but not impossibly so.  The plan was to skip the twist that would make the cowl into a mobius.  This would, I hoped, mean I could work a shorter piece but still get an attractive, wearable item.

Today I checked the pattern errata.  Turns out the cowl needs 3 skeins of Berrocco whatever.  That means 450 meters of yarn, not 300.  No way can I fudge my single 250 meter skein of Lady Godiva into something even close.

I think I'll go knit on the black thing while I contemplate the need to order another skein of Lady Godiva and debate whether I could get a pair of fingerless mitts out of the left-overs.