I've been knitting lately but... (a big pile of failed projects!)

Snickerdoodle Knits
Jan 23
4 min read

Amazing News! I've actually been getting some knitting in over the last couple of months. 🎉

Bad News: it's kinda just been one failure after another 😅

You see, at Black Friday time, I bought some yarn to make hats and mittens and such for Mini and myself. I picked a yarn for each project I wanted to make and (sort of) wrote some notes to myself. Great, fabulous, right?

Actually, it didn't start off so bad.

First, I made two matching sets of My Favorite Cable Headband for Mini and myself. I used my trusty favorite, Loops & Threads Charisma, and zero issues. Woohoo!

With that momentum, I went on to knit a pair of Hidden Love Mittens for Mini (using fonty Aubusson Worsted in Gray). Adorable. A little tight on the gauge, but that's actually perfect, because the smallest pattern size is too big for his hands anyway.

But then I went to put them on his hands and… I had knit two left hands🤦🏽‍♀️ And the thumbs were too tight…

Don't ask me why, over a month later, I still haven't reknit the left thumb and knit the right hand. Because I don't have a good answer.

But Mini's worn them several times (yes, with a couple of ends hanging out). And yes, he's lost one of them several times… the last time we didn't find it, so now we have just one 😅 So that means I don't need to rip one mitten out and reknit it; I just need to make a new one!

(Yes, I do plan to crochet a simple cord to connect the finished mittens… whenever that happens 😜)

From there, I continued on to knit my pair of Hidden Love Mittens with fonty Aubusson Worsted in Petrol Blue. I knew my gauge had been a bit tight, so I went up a needle size or two and went to town. I finished the mitten (minus the thumb)… only to discover it's a bit too small 🤦🏽‍♀️

So it's been sitting unfinished for… checks calendar … a few weeks. And really the problem is the yarn. “Technically” it's the same yarn weight as the original yarn, but in reality it's much thinner. Which means if I actually meet gauge, the fabric is going to be too thin for my liking.

Therefore, I'm stuck in indecision: do I knit a larger size with this same yarn, hold the yarn double, or just use a different yarn?

And honestly, the problem is that I wanted to use these mittens as new samples for my pattern photography… so I want them to be “right.” Which means I probably need to just use a different yarn…

By the way, if you run into these same issues when you're substituting yarn, I have a Yarn Substitution class (currently only available inside the Confident Knitter's Bundle) to help you out. I just didn't use that info when I was buying my own yarn, so….. learn from my mistakes! 😅

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At this point I was really wanting to have some warm, cozy mittens for Mini, so I decided to dive into the With Love From the North Mittens using Knit Picks' Alla Lana in Lagoon.

Remember when I said I'd made some notes about the yarn and projects? This is the point when I realized those notes weren't very helpful.

And in case you already forgot, I have a toddler. Which means my attention is nearly always split in at least two directions…. not exactly helpful for doing the math to sort out which yarn to cast on for each project.. so I kind of just guessed.

If I would've thought about it a little longer, it would've been obvious I chose the wrong yarn, but anyway..

I knit the smallest size (2-4 years), and I may or may not have added an extra stitch, but otherwise it turned out great.

"Where's the heart?!" you ask. I haven't done it yet! :) I opted to knit the full mitten in the main color, and then I'll go back over it with duplicate stitch in the contrast color.

They're a bit big for Mini, but they work fine if he doesn't need to be able to use his hands at all. And they're oh-so-cozy!

So I moved on to my pair of With Love From the North Mittens using Knit Picks' Alla Lana in Gray…

And I don't have a photo to share, but I ran out of yarn at 1.5 mittens. 🤦🏽‍♀️

Being a wonderful problem solver, I thought, “fine, I'll just make My Favorite Simple Knit Hat instead!”

Wrong… I ran out of yarn for that, too.

So now I'm sitting, wondering if I ought to attempt a blue brim with Mini's leftovers and then knit the gray hat, or (the better solution, that I'll probably be happier with) just give in and buy some more yarn to do it “the right way.” 😅

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In designing news, I knit my sample for the Totally Spaced It Super Bulky Cowl … but my DK version (which I actually started first…) is uh, still very incomplete.