Knit-rip, Knit-rip, Knit-rip

That is the story of my life lately.

A coworker is having a baby. We're having a shower for her. I don't want to spend a fortune. I thought, hey, why don't I knit something? I can even use stash yarn!

First thought: sweater. I have a bunch of Knitpicks Shine Sport to use up (In cherry, river and "cabin" - a mix of cherry, river, light blue and orange-ish). I thought that would be great. I love Knitty's Daisy. No problem. Except I can't get gauge. Single-stranded it's way off, double-stranded it's equally off. No problem. I'll just adjust the pattern. Oh, wait a minute - it's a bottom-up raglan, but it's SEAMED. What? Seaming?! No way. I thought it was a seamless knit-in-one-piece raglan. Very funny.

Well, I decided I could probably figure it out so I did a rough swatch (with the yarn doubled - I like the fabric that way, nice and sturdy and it knits up quickly on sz 8s!). At first I thought I'd just try knitting the smallest size (I was aiming for the largest size, 6-12 mos) and just go with those stitch counts. Then I realised my row gauge was way off... and anyway, the thing was turning out HUGE. 26" circumference anyone? That would fit a four year old. Riiiiiiip.

Then I pulled out another (seamless!) raglan pattern I have that calls for worsted weight and tried to just use one of their stitch counts, figuring I could work out the numbers from there. Nope, still too big! The gauge swatch is fine and dandy but this is cotton, and when you add the weight of the piece it changes things just a little. Riiiiiiiiiip!

Finally I recalculated and picked a stitch count that would (theoretically) give me a 20" circumference (survey says a 9 month old has an 18" chest circumference.. works for me!). Well, I guess it sort of did, but now I can't for the life of me figure out how to coordinate the shaping. I think I'm just going to wing it but for now I've put it down. I also can't decide exactly how to stripe it. I'm thinking solid blue top and bottom, middle red stripe (top of this stripe even with the underarm, repeating across the sleeves) and a Cabin stripe on either side of the red stripe. I'm going for a total of 7.5" in the lower body (before underarm) and 4.5" (approx) of raglan shaping, so I'm thinking 4" of blue, 2" of red and 1.5" of cabin on either side of the red. I'm worried about having enough blue, though, in which case I really *should* do 3" of blue, 2.5" of red and 2" of the cabin - but that might be too overwhelming. So then I thought about just doing random stripes - you know, 2-3 rows of each color? Anyway, I'm stumped, so I've set this aside for now. Another baby will get this sweater!

I thought booties - but that requires a hat - and maybe matching mittens - and cotton isn't best suited to that, and I wanted to use the cotton darn it! I haven't any nice baby-soft wool on hand.

Then I discovered coworker is cloth diapering. She's open to trying prefolds and soakers. So she's getting this (it still needs cuffs and finishing):

This has been several rips in the making, too. The waist band has been fine from the get-go. The variegated part, not so much. I didn't bother swatching. It's small enough. I just went at it. The yarn singled wasn't turning out tight enough for me so I decided I should double it. This was, of course, after 3" of knitting. I convinced myself I could leave 1" singled, but still had to.... Riiiiiiip.

After working to about 4" (out of 5.5 total!) I remembered that boys wet in the front and the yarn probably needed doubling from the start. Riiiiiip.

Then I misread the pattern and knit for about four rows too many - and kitchenered the seam closed. Whoops. Riiiiiip.

Now, it should be DONE. If not, I don't care, it's going to be done. All that's left are the cuffs. That's a job for another day. I am rubbish at evenly picking up stitches so it's likely to involve lots of Riiiiipppppping.