May Mulligan

Ok, so I know some of you were beginning to doubt. Were thinking that I had given up and just not told you...but no, I am still working on my March Mulligans.

...and just got one finished, as a matter of fact!! I reknit the Hat Fit for a Boyfriend that I had made for Troy. He uses it as a nightcap and it was too big, too stretched out to stay on his head overnight.

I didn't notice when I knit the pattern but it calls for an aran weight yarn and I was using a worsted. So the needle size was all wrong, for one. The 2x3 rib wasn't right either.

When reknitting the hat, I started at the top so I could just increase until I had enough stitches and knit down from there. I just used the basic formula of increasing on every other row, eight times per round.

Doesn't the centre where I started look good? I cast on 4 stitches with my favourite provisional cast on (over the tail), slid the stitches to the other end of the dpn and knit one row (like you would when making an I-cord), then did my first increases and started knitting in the round. Then when I had a few rows done, I could use the tail to pull the stitches together where I first started. Worked like a charm.

I didn't bother to ravel the old hat before I started knitting. I just unwound as I needed.

So instead of a ball of wool, I had a knitted piece as my source of yarn. Sort of like a sock blank. When I was finished I only had this much left:

(But there was no adrenaline used in the making of this hat. I had half a ball of the same colour ready in case I need it.) And of course, I was trying to make a smaller hat, so I had no reason to think I wouldn't have enough yarn. (Although stranger things have happened!)

I knit the body of the hat in a smooth sturdy stocking stitch. Eliminating the rib and using smaller needles made sure the fabric wouldn't stretch out. I finished the hat with a few rounds of garter for a simple flat finish.

Troy has tried it on and deemed it much improved. Now let's hope we won't need it for a good long while!

Mariah March Mulligan

 Here's my Mariah sweater when I made it in 2009.

It took a long time and a lot of redos, and I was very happy to have it done and to be able to wear it.

But when I started wearing it, it became obvious that the sleeves were too long.

I tried to ignore it. I tried to roll the sleeves up

but it just didn't work. It was even worse under the leather jacket that I like to wear over the sweater:

That certainly isn't attractive!

And trying to fold over cuffs under the jacket was ugly and uncomfortable.

So on a Friday night, I gathered up the tools:

Ruler, scissors, crochet hook, dpn in the right size, computer to look up notes on Ravelry and the original pattern on knitty, and a pen and paper for taking notes. (There are two sleeves. It's nicer if they match!)

First thing, I measured how much shorter I needed to make the sleeves (2.5") and how long the cabled ribbing section was (2"). Then I went up 4.5" (2.5+2) from the bottom, counted the rows so I could make the second match, and snipped a strand.

I started to ravel the row I had cut

and put the stitches onto needles.

When the whole row was on needles, I just had the seam to undo. I cut the sewing yarn at the bottom and took it out up to the point where I was going to start knitting again.

Then it was simply a matter of knitting the cable ribbing down from there. I decided to knit the cuff in the round so that I didn't have to sew a seam even though the original sleeve was knit flat. I made sure to decrease the selvage stitches so that the two parts would be the same width.

There is a shift of half a stitch where the knitting changes direction (because I knit the sleeve from the bottom up originally and now was reknitting the cuff from the top down) but you have to look pretty close to notice it. Plus, have you noticed the sweater is black? You can't see anything anyway.

One advantage of how this all worked out is that I could try the sweater on as I went and check the sleeve length.

When I got the perfect length, I cast off. And then repeated the same thing with the other sleeve. (I had a little waking nightmare of shortening the same sleeve twice rather than doing two different sleeves, but I double checked a few times, and didn't make that mistake!)

And I was rewarded with a sweater with sleeves that fit and feel good!

See? They even fit under my jacket:

It feels so much better!

Another March Mulligan completed. Another project saved. Love it!

March Mulligans

I am proposing a month of mulligans--do overs for some of my poor projects that need some help. Projects that didn't come out quite right, didn't work out right, or couldn't stand up to the abuse they were given.

Here are some projects I'm going to work on:

1. My Mariah sweater.

DONE! (Story here.)

2. Troy's Hat Fit for a Boyfriend.

DONE! (Story here.)

3. My Leaves Beret.

4. My red plarn bag.

DONE! (Story here.)


Whew...I think that's enough. Especially since the month is awfully close to over. (April might have to be my mulligan on March Mulligans.)

I've stated my goal here. Out loud. In public.
I'll start posting details when I tackle the projects.

How 'bout you? Got some things you'd like a mulligan on? Why don't you tackle them with me? Leave a comment and state your goal. Out loud. In public. I dare you.