I finished The Poncho!

You remember I was working on a poncho, right? The one I had to frog, twice?

I finally finished it!!!!

My first non-dishcloth project!

It ... um ... didn't turn out exactly like I envisioned it. But, to be fair, I didn't really follow the pattern, either. Not that I didn't "trust the pattern". (I take it that's a knitting mantra?) but because I wanted to do my own thing. Why? Because I'm Kim. It's how I cook. It's how I live. And, apparently, it's how I knit.

Here's the original pattern, for those interested.

I knit on much bigger needles, for one thing. Going for that open look. Which you can see I achieved. And every 8 rows or so I added in the fluffy pink yarn for a knit-purl-knit set of 3 rounds. In retrospect I found that the K YO K YO K pattern down the middle doesn't look very tidy if you're knitting on oversized needles. And I should've knit the YO pattern even on the Purl rows, I think. Oh, and I was going to do the fringe, but decided at the end not to. But it turned out interesting, eh? And we like it. LOL.

The biggest surprise was that as I was knitting in the round, to to bottom, I never could get a good feel for how it would hang, because the bottom was always bunched in the coil of the needles. I forgot how the YO increase would angle it, so I knit until I thought it would be a little past waist length on Eminoodle.

But that was the short sides, and the long ends turned out, well, really l o n g.

One thing I'm a little not-sure-of is why my angle of increase is so much greater. I did re-read the pattern and it sounds like you do the K YO K YO K portion front and back, which I did, which adds 4 stitches per round. But hers made a tidy ~90 degree point and my is, well ... so long. Is that because of the big needles? Wouldn't that make it proportionally bigger in both directions? Or maybe I'm knitting goofy, doing something wrong. I might be. I just started, I don't really know what I'm doing.

Although I am having fun, what with the knitting stuff.


Anyway. As you can see, the poncho looks great ... as long as you pose like this:

Here's a little detail of the knit:

If I had to do it over again, would I do it the same?
Well, I don't like to cook the same exact thing twice. I don't think I'd want to knit the same thing twice, either. I do need to make another since this one was intended for Eminoodle but is too long for her. So this will go to Iliacat, and I will make a similar-but-different one for Noodle.

Since I have to do it over again, will I follow the pattern this time?
Ha ha! Of course not. What's life if you can't Kimodify? But I do plan on knitting hers on the smaller needles, just to compare. I think I'll keep the same pattern of occasional pink fluff rows, but knit the YO portion of the purl rounds. At least, that's my vague plan. I guess you'll find out when I do, LOL.

In unrelated news, my hardly-a-baby Buzz loves these hats Iliacat and Moogie knit on the Nifty Knitters. He's always putting them on and wearing them around. He's as cute as cute comes, don't you think?