You may or may not have noticed (and Kat can certainly attest to this fact) that I am quite the perfectionist. I’ll try most things but don’t sell my crafts really because I have no confidence that they’re good enough. If there’s even the slightest flaw – if my stitches aren’t quite right, if I am a little heavy handed with paint or dye – I will set what I’ve made aside.

So can you imagine my rage this evening? I’ve been working on a pair of longies* for Greer this week, it’s the first knitting I’ve picked up in a while and I spent most of last night and today working on the leg. I was SO HAPPY with how the wool (which I dyed myself) was knitting up and finally cast off the first leg earlier.

Then I looked at them.

Then I noticed a MAJOR COCK UP.

I’ll post what the cock up is tomorrow, in the meantime I’m going to leave it as is to see how quickly my knitting friends can spot it. Luckily for us, my lovely and fabulously talented friend Evelyn is currently making Greer a pair of her scrappies longies so at least we’ll have one pair to tide us over!

Apologies for the terrible photos but a) they were taken on my phone and b) the light in here is terrible.

I’m away to frog** the leg and start again. Out of curiosity though, can I ask your opinions on the leg design?

Firstly – I’ve got a moss-stitch band roughly where Greer’s knees will be. Primarily this is because the rise is so big on these that I don’t think my variegated wool will stretch to two full legs so I’ve broken it up with the trim colour. The other reason is that Greer will be crawling soon and I think the moss stitch patches will help reduce the wear and tear if she’s crawling in them. Do you think a) the band of colour looks okay and b) the moss stitch band is a good idea or a terrible one? Bob said he thought it might look better simply knitted but after the work that’s gone into them I’d be fuming if they ended up with a hole in the knee.

Secondly – I usually do a ruffle edging on the legs but I’ve gone with a ribbed cuff which can be folded over to give Greer some growing room. I can’t quite decide if I like the way it looks though – what say you?

* Longies are knitted, lanolised trousers worn over cloth nappies. They’re a more breathable solution than plastic pants and the wool can hold a significant amount of wee before it leaches, PLUS with being lanolised the longies are self-cleaning since lanolin+urine=soap. Clever, eh?

** Frogging (for the non-knitters) is when you rip back what you’ve knitted. Rip-it, Rip-it. Geddit?

Posted under dyeing wool, knitting