Whoa. That's bright

Yeah, I know this is a crappy photo, taken with my phone in lousy light. But this sweater is SO bright, who needs light? This is a Baby Surprise Jacket I knit with some random leftovers of Cascade Sierra Quatro. The striping pattern seemed like a good idea at the time. Truth be told, it was doomed from the start.

Mistake No. 1:I didn't really read the pattern. I had knit one of these before and so I didn't really pay attention to what I was doing the second time around. There's a big section of increases, and because I wasn't paying attention I only knit half the number of increases called for by the pattern. As I was knitting I was thinking to myself, Hmmm... It's taking a LOT longer to get to 152 stitches than I remember... But I was at Madrona and I was having fun chatting with folks and it was mindless knitting and I didn't actually stop to consider the possibility that I had totally jacked up the sweater.

Mistake No. 2: I contrived this crazy color scheme that involved rotating among three colors so that each color had five ridges, intertwined with one other color, while the third color rested. This involved cutting the yarn every 10 ridges or so. Are you putting two and two together yet?

Consequences of Mistakes No. 1 and 2: After I discovered mistake No. 1, I painstakingly ripped the sweater back and wound -- in order -- all of my cut strands of color back onto their respective balls of yarn. I started the increase section again, making the correct number of increases this time. Within a few inches I realized that my cut strands were now not going to be long enough to finish the requisite number of rows in each color. I had plenty of yarn, but the unused, uncut yarn was now at the cores of the three balls, surrounded by countless strands that were too short to use.

Mistake No. 3: I used the too short strands anyway, and now have about eight thousand ends to weave in.

I can't bring myself to weave in all those ends because I hate the way the colors turned out. This one will likely end up on the mound o' regret. That is, unless Elmo wants to buy it to wear for a night on the town. I think it's his color.