Rippit, Rippit

bleh. I hate frogging. For you non-knitters out there, frogging is when you have to tear out knitted stitches due to a mistake. (When you frog a project, you "rip-it, rip-it," hence the name.) I either try to not make mistakes, not care about mistakes, or do a project (like felting) where it doesn't matter if I mess up a stitch or two.

But yesterday I decided I wanted to learn how to cable. So, I chose the perfect project: a beanie with two cables. Nice and simple. I also found this amazing alpaca/merino blend yarn that is soooo yummy to knit. Seriously. It felt so good that after knitting a couple of inches of the hat I ran out and bought more! (Luckily it was 50% off otherwise there was no way I was going to buy it in the first place.) I had never knit with alpaca before and had always preferred wool...until now. Man, that yarn is so nice that if you were to tie me up with it, I wouldn't complain.

Anyway, back to the hat. Tim is out of town for a week :-( so I pretty much camped out on the futon, watched a lot of TV, and finished the hat! Oh, it was so nice and soft and creamy and perfect. Until I put it on. Then I discovered that I forgot a cable row so the pattern was uneven. And when I tried it on it was way too big around and too tall.

I struggled with what to do for a moment, but realizing how expensive the yarn was and how yucky the hat looked I had no. choice. but. to. frog. I unraveled the entire hat. I've never in my life ever have I ripped apart an entire finished project. In fact, I have a sweater I finished two years ago (my first and so far only) that is so big and so badly knitted that instead of frogging I've decided to felt it and hope that'll fix it.

Well, I'm glad I frogged the hat. It took several more Perry Mason made-for-TV movies, but I did it! It looks good and I casted on 10 fewer stitches so it fits good and only knitted 9 inches instead of the 10 the pattern called for. Now it's cute! It reminds me of something Mary Tyler Moore might have worn in the '70s. :-) Of course, I'm going to wear it today and show off my new skill. I'm also going to do another cable pattern: fingerless gloves. This time I'm using merino/cashmere blend yarn. Oooooh....