...this is what you're doing, this is what you should be doing...

So, I have been churning away at this...

I bought 3 balls of Habu linen at Madrona and have been working on it as I have a spare minute here and there.  I sat down on Monday and was determined to get this thing done.  I was pretty smug.  How long could it take?  I just had the right front piece and the collar piece to finish.  Basic stockinette with a bunch of decreases, really mindless knitting but I was totally on track to get it done.  I knit off and on during the day, taking it with me as I ran errands.  I knit at stop lights, waiting in line at the bank and while waiting for my car to be filled with gas.  After diner I sat myself down and told myself I wasn’t moving until it was done and ready to be blocked.  It all seemed very reasonable until this...

That’s me running out of linen with about 2 inches left to go on the collar.  Okay, so I wasn’t going to finish that night,  but how in the world did I run out?  My gauge was on, I checked it and rechecked it.  Okay, never mind.  I set out to find another ball of the linen, calling yarn shops I know in the area that carry Habu.  No dice.  No one had the color I needed.  They had every other color that Habu makes, but #2.  I even had Kristine at Verb check to see if she might just have a ball of the elusive #2 at the store.  Nope.  I gave up the hunt nearby and ordered it from the Habu website.  It should be here in another couple of days.

Then something else happened.  You may or may not know this but Steph and I are both knitting this.  We both fell pretty hard when we saw it, both tried it on, loved how it fit.  She got the orange, I got the tan.  She’s been knitting on hers in hopes to have it done for the book tour.  When I saw her in Portland on Tuesday night she was almost done.  She had the fronts and back knit, had them seamed together and was cruising up the collar pieces.  We were sitting together after her book signing and she was knitting on hers (mine was at home in a time out waiting for the ball of yarn to arrive).  As she was knitting I realized something...she was almost done and she was going to have a bunch of yarn left.   How was that possible?  We were knitting the same size and I had run out and she had a surplus.  She told me that because she is shorter than I am she had reduced the overall length by about an inch but I didn’t think that that could account for the difference in she having that much yarn left and me having none.

Whatever, it is what it is.  We were just wrapping up our evening and she tried the vest on.  It was a little shorter than I remembered it being when she tried on the sample.  But, whatever, she had shortened it a bit.  

We went our separate ways, me to home and Steph on to Seattle and then San Francisco where she met up with Julie.  Julie had signed a copy of the pattern for Steph and presented it to her after her book signing.  It was then the Steph discovered what the real problem with all of this was.  We were knitting this:

when we should have been knitting this:

Yup, two different patterns;  Adrian, the unisex design, which is the one we've been knitting, and Adriana, Adrian’s feminine sister, which is the one we tried on and loved.  We had been knitting the wrong pattern, different gauge, different yarn, different needles, different shaping...  I can’t even tell you how I felt at the moment Steph called this to my attention because I’m a nice person and would never type those words here that came out of my mouth that night, but let’s just say that the text thread back and forth between Steph and I should be deleted before my grandkids get hold of my phone and leave it at that.  

So, I will be re-knitting this beast. I’m not sure what Steph will be doing with hers.   I am determined to get this thing done and wear it.  I’ve decided, rather than frog it and wind it into balls, I will just knit from it like it was a sock blank.  The less time I have to devote to this project the better.  And the extra ball of linen that’s coming?  I would have had to gotten another one anyway because the Adriana calls for 4 balls.  What can I say?  When you’re wrong, you’re wrong, but now I think I’ve got it right.