Ugh, I give up.

I have finished a couple of Christmas presents so far and I am cautious but optimistic about my ability to finish a pair of socks and a few pairs of felted clogs, and some anklets, and one or two scarves...
Anyway, one of the presents that I've finished is one of those projects...

I had a brilliant idea. I had the perfect yarn. I had the skills. What I failed to calculate was the shear will of this blanket. It did not want to get made.
First, the pattern. It's an adaptation of a scarf that Wendy made and I doted on. I saw clearly that if she could make a skinny long rectangle, that with a few extra repeats I could make a more robust version and have a pretty fantastic baby blanket. So, I swatched (you in the back, stop laughing) so that I could measure how wide and tall the repeats were so I could do the math for my blanket.

That having been accomplished, I went to town. I quickly determined that more than one skein of yarn would be needed and ordered some more. And I started knitting...and knitting and knitting...but gosh it was getting w-i-d-e.

Dern, I'll have to take out some repeats (frog pond, 1) So I did. Then I realized that I didn't like the cast on (frog pond, 2) and ripped back. THEN I got the new skeins in the mail and realized the implicit danger to using hand dyed yarn--no two skeins are ever alike...

...and they were never going to be close enough and I HATE the idea of alternating skeins (frog pond 3)...BAH!!!!!!! So, I searched for a suitable replacement and found this...and this little baby was finally on it's way.

Oh, boy! I'm knitting and knitting and it's getting wider-not taller. Skein 1: Hmm, maybe I should frog it and reduce the number again...well, maybe it'll block tall... Skein 2: hmm, maybe I should order more yarn...Skein 3: Definately needs more yarn...Skein 4: mygodthisisnevergoingtoend...Skein 5: Good thing I ordered that extra one, but man, it's still kinda wide...Until, here I am at the end of my patience and then end of my dye lot and the damn thing is a rectangle THE WRONG WAY!!!!!!! The @(#(*$%&$^ thing is 'landscape' and I wanted 'portrait'!!!! PORTRAIT!!!!!!

Gaaaaahhhhhhh!!

And then, I put it in the wash to give it a little rinsy so that it would be clean for the baby and the peanut-crackin'-cork-popper BLOOMED!

*sigh* I knew it would all work out :)