Really Terrible Erika Knight Hat

Isn't this hat lovely?  (See Below)

Not when I tried to knit it.  I used the same yarn, the right needles, concentrated on my cabling......pulled it all out again when I discovered there was an error in the pattern.....worked out the correct pattern......but it just got worse and worse.  It wasn't the pattern error that made it bad - THAT at least I managed to work out and NO thanks to Knit-Today despite posting on their FaceBook page and emailing them.  You'd think if a knitting magazine got a pattern wrong, they'd want to do something about it.  The pattern chart was correct and I managed to work out the pattern from there, fortunately.  However, the pattern asked for 16 repeats of the cable pattern.  If I had done that, the hat would have ended up as a long bizarre scarf thing.  It was also blatantly obvious when I compared my knitting to the picture that everything was wrong:  in the picture, the cabling looking very crisp and, well, quite small.  The hat I made is ENORMOUS and that's with only 10 cable pattern repeats.  Everything indicates different wool and different needles.  The colour isn't even the same - it looks like a fresh pink in the picture but is in fact quite dull.

You can't imagine my disappointment.  Erika Knight yarn is hardly cheap.  Two balls of wool cost me £16 - I don't think I've ever bought anything that expensive.  I wanted to make a super-soft, gorgeous hat for my daughter as her skin is very sensitive.  I thought this yarn would be ideal.  I couldn't have been more wrong.

My faith in Knit-Today has hit rock bottom.  I don't want ever to knit anything from their pages again.  It's bad enough that I'm a bad knitter but to be bad because the pattern doesn't work or the yarn is wrong or the needles were wrong..........hah.

Oh and even the pompoms were terrible!  I followed the instructions PERFECTLY and ended up with a weird oval shaped pompom.  Needless to say, the whole lot has been shoved in a box, never to be looked at again.  When my daughter tried it on, by the way, it looked like a HUGE tea cosy, but made but a square tea pot (do you get square tea pots?!)

This is what it's supposed to look like

Note the different in colour

.....and this is what it really looks like:  notice how the cabling isn't nearly as compact as it is in the photo above - and I was knitting tightly to try and get that effect.....in vain.

Summer Breeze Headscarf

I found a new knitting magazine recently called Knit Now.  Easy to miss considering how poorly stocked my local magazine outlets are - it has become virtually impossible to find a knitting magazine anywhere.  The answer - probably - is to subscribe but I don't feel compelled to buy a knitting mag every month and besides, I want the variety of different ones!  Also, I've got projects I've been meaning to do going back to issues that came out three years ago and often, magazines just seem to repeat the same stuff - I mean, how many mug warmers do you need?!

Anyway, the patterns in Knit Now are a little harder than the magazines I've been used to.  Their "beginner" is my intermediate!  Although that might have something to do with the fact that I'm not a hugely adventurous or skilled knitter.  I'm currently knitting the Summer Breeze Headscarf (Issue 34) with some gorgeous yarn I bought an awfully long time ago.  There were only three balls of it - all I could find in the John Lewis sale.  This was back in the days when they actually did excellent yarn sales.....sadly, they could no longer be bothered selling yarn off cheap, nor do they have a particularly good range.  Three cheers for on-line shops.  But I digress....

The yarn is Gedifra Fiorista Fino, 88% cotton, one of those divine yarns that look like a gorgeous painting by the time you've finished.  The pattern actually calls for Artesano Linen Silk DK, which costs about £8 a skein (Knit Now is really big on skeins) but I thought my cotton would work better as a headscarf/headband.  It's a lot finer but considering that you just keep on increasing until you basically reached around 80cm, I figured I just need to keep going with my triangle until I've got the right end width and then I'll know it's big enough!

I started it earlier this year but made the huge error of trying to knit it in front of the telly.  It's not a difficult pattern but you do (or I do) really have to concentrate.  I restarted it this week and am knitting in the afternoons when I'm quite tired after a morning of hard work and need to sit down for a bit!  Decent sci-fi stories on R4 all week have really helped!

I've learnt some new things as well:  for a start, there really is a difference between knit 2 tog and ssk.  I couldn't figure out how to do the latter so didn't bother - big mistake!  Another reason to pull out my first attempt [see directly below].  However, I found ssk really difficult and am doing knit 2 tbl instead.  Is there a difference?!  

My first attempt. Lots of mistakes, but aren't the colours lovely?

Must have been an exciting bit on TV as there are about ten mistakes in this bit....!

Knit Now magazine

The pattern - the photo has actually come out quite clearly and you might be able to copy it!

My second attempt, using a different ball, so the colours have started out differently.
No mistakes so far!!

My three balls of precious end-of-line Gedifra...