The yarn is winning

So, I'm going to a roller derby event? match? game? I don't know what you call them, but I'm going. The team I'm cheering for wears camo, and being a peacenik, I don't own any. So I thought, how hard can it be to knit up a little something? Famous last words. I bought a couple of skeins of Red Heart in a camo colorway. I found a shrug with a very open, cargo net looking stitch pattern. And I cast on. And frogged. And frogged. And frogged again.

You see, the original was made with a cashmere blend. Red Heart is no cashmere. I don't want it that close against my skin, thankyouverymuch. Also, the original was made by a skinny minnie, and I am no skinny minnie. So I've increased the size twice, and I think maybe I've finally got that right. I've also added a ribbed cuff. She started with a couple of rows of garter stitch, and I just don't like the look of garter stitch in variegated yarn, even for a couple of rows in a dark color where you're not really going to see it much anyway. I'm picky like that.

Then I managed to screw up the stitch pattern on the WS rows the first time I tried it. That's what I get for gabbing on the phone with my mother instead of paying attention to the knitting when I try something new. One of the times I frogged I switched from a 2x2 ribbing to 1x1, and I like that a lot better. The last time I frogged I managed to screw up the stitch pattern, ending up with the wrong number of stitches on my needle and dropping something in the vicinity of a yarn over. Riiiiiiip! This stitch pattern is particularly hard to unknit- at least I find it so- because it's all ssk, k2tog, or yo. I hope I don't make any noticeable mistakes once I get past the forearm (assuming I ever get that far), because going back to fix something will be a son of a bitch. At this early stage of the game it's easier just to start all over, especially with the kind of mistakes I've been making. Fortunately, the cabled headband is coming along much better.

But I still want that shrug!