I own a yarn shop. So I should be able to pick up a pattern, yarn and just knit...right?

Wrong...we all have project fails. We have the ones that we hide in the bottom of a basket or drawer, shamefully so that no one else will find it in its ugliness. Some are brave enough to just throw them out the first time instead of forgetting you made such an ugly thing and stumble across it, a year from now and recoil in horror!!

So I was on a quest for a baby sweater, unisex type. I picked out a designer that I enjoy knitting but she is very, well...let's just say she is an engineer. I loved her technique of using sock yarn and finger chaining it as you knit, making it a heavier yarn. This is cool for someone (like me that dislikes small needles) that likes to finish things.....fast.  

I begin the sweater and it has all these short rows, back and forth, and then the final straw was, "try this on the baby you want to make it for and see how it fits?" I turned the 16 pages of pattern over and looked to see if it included a baby with it to try it on. Seriously, I do not have a baby to try it on, it is a gift for a baby-to-be, not one now.

So I ripped it out. No baby sweater should take two weeks to make. Restart and a new pattern, another fail, it is the ugliest sweater I have EVER made. I tried to block it with false hope that it would turn into something at least better. Nope, so it is out on the deck, drying (I am actually hoping the raccoons will steal it for a nest or something.)

But I am now on my way to knitting a really cute sweater, a basic top down baby sweater that, by the way, is a very nice knit for a beginning knitter. So you see we all have fails, it isn't always you, and if you see a raccoon running around with a moss green ugly sweater, BACK AWAY! That dude has bad taste.