Frogging... Ah, Crap!!!

A friend and I had this great idea to do a knit along (KAL). Isn't that how it always starts out? Well, I should have known this was cursed from the start.

We chose the all-(north)american hoodie from Knitting Green. (A great book, by the way) You can check out the pattern here on Ravelry. And since we had a hard time finding the yarn it called for ~ when do you EVER find the yarn a pattern calls for without spending an arm and a leg??? ~ we decided to use Blue Sky Alpacas Skinny Cotton. You hold it double stranded and use big needles, or so we thought. (See where I'm headed with this? Cursed project...)

So, we cast on with our #10 needles and whoa, mama, it's freakin' huge!!! Time to start doing swatches. I know what you're thinking, should have done the swatches first. Yeah, but admit it already, no one does swatches unless they have to or unless they've had a bad experience. I finally hit gauge with #8 needles. Hurrah! Recast on and start all over again.

Continuing on, I work on this sweater for a month or so and I can't help but feel like it's well, HUGE. But, I'm knitting at gauge. I did the swatch. Right? I'm cool. But still it's eating at me. WTF? Why is this thing so damn big? Did I just chose the wrong size? But I just keep going along.

So finally yesterday in knitting class I mention to my knitting teaching that I have this sinking suspicion that my sweater is ginormous. Well, those weren't my exact words, but it was something along those lines. She gets out the tape measure and guess what? It's 56 inches around. Let me describe myself for you just so you can get an accurate picture of this. I wear a size 8 or 10. So yeah, I could wear the sweater with a friend or perhaps when I'm 10 or 11 months pregnant. Oh, wait, you give birth at 9 months, scratch that last one.

Bugger! Almost two full hanks of yarn knitted. And I'm going to go rip it all out. Does anyone else cry when they frog something??

I mean this is completely my own stupid fault. I should have measured it WEEKS ago. I don't know WHAT I was thinking. Obviously, not thinking...

Then, feel the excitement in my voice, I get to start all over AGAIN. My knitting teacher thinks the needle size is right, but I should just cast on the smallest size on the pattern. Bright side? It should go much faster with so many fewer stitches?

What do I really want to do? Scrap the whole thing for now and start on a Madelinetosh project. But did I mention that this is a KAL? I need to be K'ingAL. And my knitting buddy is the nicest person on the planet. She's offered to help me knit the sleeves to help me keep up on the KAL. I know, NICEST person on the planet.

Nothing left to do but get frogging and recast... And for god's sake measure the damn thing!!