I Wish I Was Faster

There are times when I wish I was faster.  Walking, running - the usual.  I wish I knit faster.  That way when I screw up I can fix it quickly.  This week I wish I was faster at recognizing I have a problem and faster at thinking it through.

I chose this project for the pincushion.  Looks nice and small in the picture in the magazine.  Should be a quick knit I thought.

I should have read the pattern closely.  I knit the four top squares and decided to make the back plain and not another 4 patterned squares like the front.  I was halfway through the back when I blocked the top pieces.  One had to be reknit to fix the mistake in it.  You would think when I was blocking the four top squares I would take a step back and think.  Gee, this is going to be 6" square.  That is awfully large for a pincushion.  That 6" is before the lace edging.

No, I reknit one square instead.  Then I tried sewing two squares together, and tried and tried various methods of joining, I realized I could not join the squares neatly*.  Each seam choice resulted in a mess.  That was when after a night's sleep I thought I could just use two squares, one for the top and one for the bottom.

I joined the two squares top to bottom and started the lace edging using the same lace edging as the pattern.  It took me several attempts to get the lace started as I wanted to knit it on instead of knitting the edging first and sewing it on. This choice turned out to be a happy accident.

I got one side done and turned the first corner.  I added extra rows for the corner but after a day of knitting on this I realized the lace edging was way too wide for a 3" square. See ...

Slept on it.  Ripped out the lace edging and made up my own.

 

Finally a finished project.  If I had been faster, it would not have taken me a week.

This pincushion, my smallest project just kicked my a.... , yet I think it is adorable.  I have stuck pins in it.  I have it where I can see it and admire it.  I think all the issues I was having were the project telling me that what I was doing was not what it wanted to be.  I should have listened faster.  I got there in the end though.

When I looking for something else and I found this pattern.  (the link is to the doll for sale, she offers the pattern on Ravelry)

I just knew I had to make it.  The knitting part is easy I have all the parts done.

Now the assembly begins.  I wish that part was done.  I think the most fun part will be blinging her up.  Now if I had been smarter, I would have picked something easy for the knitted toy category.  I could have knit a teddy bear and been done faster.  The assembly and decoration is going to take way longer than the knitting.

I have chosen patterns for most of the remaining categories.  I have 2 in progress and 6 not started.  We are not going to mention the lapghan.



*In fairness to the designer, the problem may have been the edge stitch I chose thinking it would be easier to sew up.  Did not work for the seaming but worked like a charm for joining one square on top of the other.