A little while ago I got a call from my sister-in-law, she wanted her whole family to dress up in Despicable Me characters for Halloween and needed an extra long "Gru" scarf for her husband (he is quite tall!), and an "Edith" hat for her girl. No problem, I can use my machines! Well. I showed you what I had to do to get my standard gauge going. Then all the issues I had. The injury (which, the doctor says isn't broken, but might have tendon damage). Finally, the scarf was done. One thing I did to help speed it up, was carry the grey threads up during the black stripe. Once the scarf was done, I used a laundry Sharpie to darken those grey threads. I did cut the black for each stripe though, because otherwise it would show too much in the grey sections. I used Loops & Threads "
Woolike" . This is a really nice, non-wool acrylic yarn in sock yarn thickness and manly colours. I used black and grey, though I added a strand of a darker grey cone yarn that I have as I didn't think the grey was dark enough. And, I was trying to use up a black sock yarn that I have that was a smidge thicker, so I thought it'd balance out. According to my notes, this scarf weighs 203grams. I'm not sure how, as the black is used less, and I used up the entire ball of grey....
For the Edith hat, I used my LK150, and based it on a pattern online for one on the Bond. I had to make it bigger though. My niece's head is 24" (she is smart, but also has a lot of hair!), and she's going to wear her ninja scarf hat under it. I swatched, let it rest overnight, then got going on the pattern. It seemed big, and my kids didn't like how it got pointy at the top. So I re-did the top part. It was bigger than my 21" wig head, so I got it finished and off in the mail (hat: 98gr).
Last night while shopping I got a call from my SIL saying it arrived, but the hat was way too big...it was almost 28"! How?! No, I didn't measure it before mailing, just trusted my math. I suggested she try sewing up the back seam, she's crafty and fussy and I felt she could probably figure out something. But it made me very mad at myself!!! I get so annoyed when knitting math lies to me. But this was terrible.
As soon as I got home, I checked my math. I didn't have the swatch anymore, so I made a new one. Tugged and pulled it into shape, let it rest a little. Measured a few times. My math was right. Started working on it, somethings I did a bit different, some things went more smoothly, until a stupid error stopped me for the night. Finished this morning and sewed up after lunch. However. It also seemed to grow, from 4.5st/inch to 4st/inch! Doesn't sound like much, but that means 24" grows to about 27". So I resewed the seam smaller. I also somehow made each stripe a row or two wider and this meant the top ended up being shorter...I'll post a picture later. Not a big deal, I hope. Got it mailed. Started feeling weird while standing at the postal counter....suddenly got very hot....
This version weighs in at 95gr. So it MUST be smaller, right?
Yarn In: 12 507gr
Yarn Out: 396gr + 9028gr = 9424gr
Balance: 3083gr more brought IN than out
Costs: $349.29/290 days = $1.20/day
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