**BIG LESSON ** Be hyper-careful pressing Bamboo Soft!!The Knitting Gods Hate Me…..
May 15th, 2007, 10:22 am
Have you ever felt like everything you touch “knitting wise” is going to turn a big pile of steaming Doggy Doodar??
I have just stuffed one of those accursed projects down the back of my “pending” knitting basket!
In the middle of the huge Glade Edging Slog, I thought I’d treat my self to a very quick and easy fun knit.
A pair of these from April 2006 Simply Knitting….
Not my usual kind of knitting but I thought they were cute. And I get very cold feet in winter!!
They use 2 balls of the discontinued Rowan Spray. I’d always liked the look of Spray but never got around to making anything in it.
My one piece of luck with these darned slippers was that Angel Yarns had some spray on their sale page. I was ordering a copy of Interweave Knits for a skirt pattern I’d been told about anyway, so added it to the order. (That’s a teaser! Tell you about the skirt in another post!!)
That part of the slippers went smoothly – ordered yarn, received yarn quickly, yarn was yummy!
The evening the yarn arrived, I whipped out my Denise needles and knitted the cuff of the slipper in the smallest size. I even thought to use a long tail cast on so I’d be able to get my foot in them **pats self on back**
Next part, knit the toe following the chart.
This is the chart…
“That looks sole shaped not toe shaped” I thought….”but it says knit to row 18 and there is a thoughtfully place dotty line at row 18. They must have done something clever and reused one chart for both sole and heel……….”
..at row 18 I had 7 stitches on my needle – OK so far. Do blah blah blah and cast off 3 stitches (for the arithmetically challenged out there – that left 4 stitches on the needle) then rejoin yarn and cast of 7 stitches!! EEEk!!! 
After an hour of failing to work out what was wrong – the evil slippers were stuffed in the bottom of my knitting bag, ready to consult my fellow Guilty Knitters.
The combined brainpower of the Guilty Knitters, of course, instantly spotted what was wrong….”There’s a chart missing! Have you checked online? There’s often pattern amendments….”
Why didn’t I think of that? I muffled my self abusing swearing in a therapeutically large Starbucks soya latte with an extra shot and hazelnut syrup – it helped!
The huge Glade edging was looking like a walk in the park at this point….
Lo and behold! I found the missing chart first click! It’s here if you need a copy. I has however, been drawn by a 4 year old with their bestest crayons…
My excitement with project had taken a serious bashing.
To borrow the American phrase, “I’m no quitter” ….
After deciding that I might be better off with the medium size after all, I started again and finished all the parts for one whole slipper. Excitement level were building again!
I had raided John Lewis and bought the required elbow patches to make the soles – I thought this was an inspired idea in the pattern. Rather than buying specialist slipper soles you use one pad for the ball of the foot and half a pad on the heel.
The elbow pad is too big for the sole. 
No, not the end of the world, I can cut it down to fit. Then I have to get the sewing machine out to punch a new row of holes in the leather so I can sew it.
Remember how this was supposed to be a quick and easy little “sweetie” of a project??
I think I’ll abandon that American phrase I was talking about in favour of a well used English one..
“Bugger this for a game of soldiers. I’m off to the pub!” 
