NaKniSweMo - Day 30: Complete yet Incomplete

Day 30 and miraculously... I finished it!!

Yay! Er...wait a second...

Ok, so it's technically done.

I did finish it...
only to realize right away that something was terribly wrong. Oh no!

The neckband is absurdly small, pinching the cardi into a craptacular bolero. See below:

before neckband

after neckband

Crap. Crap. Crap.

One would think that I merely added too few stitches - but upon closer inspection it looks like the recommended 305 stitches really just aren't enough (at least for the way I knit). Additionally, I realized that the cardi would be stretching even more after I blocked it - and since the collar is added perpendicular to the body it would NOT be stretching along with the body - so to be safe I decided I had better do my wet blocking before adding the collar.

Rip. Rip. Rip.

(Hours of work wasted...sob!)

Wet blocking time.

So much for hip-skimming. Looks like this will be knee length!

Love, love, love the lace pinecones.

Ok so I'm not really bummed about having to frog the whole collar (gotta get it done right, see) but I was really excited about a weird tweak I had done out of necessity.

Can you see it?

Inspired by sheer laziness (and a predilection for leaving things in their original packaging for as LONG as possible) I decided to use a different yarn for my cast-off.

I had come to the end of my ball, see - with literally only one row left to go. Rather than open an untouched package of yarn (10 skeins) and wind up a ball, I dug around and found this gorgeous variegated lace yarn I had bought a while ago.

Schaefer Yarn Company - Andrea

I love the color - and what better way to show off the transition? I am so pleased with the result, and will definitely be repeating it when I re-finish this project. (Gah, just realized that this means I have to open that package after all...foiled!!)

So...for my first NaKniSweMo, I would consider this a success! Even though it wasn't.

Thanks for reading.