Mistakes were made

I'm sure I have urged you to read the directions all the way through before starting a project.  Now I'm going to urge you to read them through again when you get to the end if there is finishing work involved.  I finished the granny squares for the felted bag, felted them, pinned them out to equal size, and sat back, feeling the glow of a job well done.  Except that it wasn't well done.  Had I paid more attention I would have known to SEW THEM TOGETHER BEFORE FELTING, which I only checked once I tried to figure out how to sew the felted pieces together.  Well, now I feel stupid.  I not only missed that, I missed the instructions to do a row of single crochet around the edges after sewing the pieces together.  All hope is not lost, but it's going to be tougher to make a bag of these than it would have been.  There are decorative openwork embroidery stitches that can be used to join hemmed edges that would work here, so I will choose a color that doesn't try at all to be unobtrusive and get to joining.  Still, now I'm doing it the hard way because I didn't reread the instructions.

I bought yarn today, even though I have absolutely no need to, but I was in Lahaska, PA, for brunch with people I worked with a long time ago, and there was a yarn store so I had to go take a look.  Twist in Lahaska has a very nice selection, and if you're interested in spinning they can help you with that.  I settled for two skeins of Avalon Multis cotton/acrylic for a baby sweater, on sale.  Once I pick a pattern that can join all of the others bagged up and waiting for my attention.

I'm close to the end of two shawl projects.  One, in worsted weight, will go much faster than the one in laceweight that has over 400 stitches per row, but the end is in sight for both, yeehaw!  Then I can let myself start something new.  Something larger, like a baby blanket, or something quick for some instant gratification?

I picked out 3 projects to take on my vacation, during which I anticipate waits in airports, on planes, in hotels, etc during which yarn work should take place.  Projects that don't require multiple colors, or stitch holders, or cutting and reattaching.  One is Sockhead Hat in a brightly stripey sock yarn - nothing exciting to do, just miles of small-gauge stockinette for when I might have to pay attention to something other than my hands.  Two is the Cassiope shawl/scarf in a yarn made of what looks like 4 strands of separately variegated purple and white yarns twisted together.  More of a pay-attention-to-me lace pattern for quiet times.  Third is the Autopilot Cowl, which claims to be a simple pattern that lets the yarn be the star, so a skein of Noro Kibou will go into that.  I have less yardage than the pattern calls for, but I'll just make it shorter.  I think that's enough to hold me for my free time during 16 days of travel.  I'll be in Scotland, Ireland, and Iceland, all good places to find yarn, so I may come home with a sweater's worth of Aran or a hat's worth of Lopi.

And just for so, here's a good link on the difference between knitters when it comes to gauge.  The scientist in me likes how she graphed the results.  And if you follow to the end of the page she has a link to an experiment in which she subjects identical swatches to different kinds of blocking to see whether a stretched block will retain its new size.  Short answer, no - if your gauge is off, there's not a lot of permanent change you can effect by blocking.  So fight the urge to dive into a project, and check your gauge before you do.