She was walking down the hall. Slowly. And she was saying “sorry”, “sorry”, “sorry” in a small, sad little voice. She didn’t look at me as she handed me what she was carrying and when I saw what was in her hands I cried.

I taught myself to knit in order to make Isabelle a woolen nappy cover for night time use. I did this despite my better judgement regarding the possible ick factor of the whole evaporate-the-wee off principle behind wool covers for real nappies. I loved knitting and for a first project my nappy cover went pretty well. It will never be used, due to the afore-mentioned ick factor getting the better of me (that and a small sizing issue). It has yet to be finished, due to a deep seated fear of crochet (soon to be remedied). But this post is not about that nappy cover, it is, in fact, about what happend a few months later (an interlude that was mostly pre-occupied with moving states twice for no reason) when I decided that I really liked knitting and wanted to do more.

It turned out my friend Amber wanted to knit too. This was a very good thing because being the sensible sort that she is she went straight to the local library where she found this:

Amber also found our local yarn store and before I knew it she had made herself a gorgeous mini scarf (choker??), complete with button holes. By the time I caught up with this fact she had moved on to the Garter Stitch Blanket from baby knits for beginnners.

I am very original, so I got myself some Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran too (in different colours) and embarked on the same project. Things did not go well. I had some serious gauge issues. Each square was coming out a size all of its very own. I quickly realised that I was wasting very fine yarn on a project that was going nowhere fast. So I gave up.

I put away the lovely Silk Road and instead I pulled out the left over yarn from the nappy cover, embarking on a far more modestly sized (and priced) dolly blanket to go with Isabelle’s very first dolly which we were intending to give her as a weaning present. I finished it the night before the party by biting the bullet and making use of the first few squares where the gauge was still not that great. Never the less the blanket was a big hit (so was the dolly), she played all day and she played all night: