It's No Mystery . . .

I suck at sewing, grafting and blocking. Ug.

I've just grafted the two pieces of the mystery stole. Well, I say grafted. More like hacked the two pieces together with hardly an even set of yarn-overs next to each other, and a big line across the middle. Honestly, I was almost crying as I attempted to sew this thing together! It just wouldn't stay even. Then the yarn broke as I was pulling it through a stitch (luckily there was enough left to do the rest of the grafting, but still! It was an emotional moment). Then it all bunched together and I had to tease it open. It's just as well my house doesn't have a fireplace, because ceremonial burning sure seemed attractive at one point.

Eventually, I finished. I chose to graft it instead of doing a three needle bind off because I figured there wouldn't be a line across the middle. I mean, that's the main selling point of grafting, isn't it? That there's supposed to be no seam line. Well, mine has one. But now I'm thinking I should have just done the three needle thing, as it would have been a lot easier.

Plus, my blocking was crap. The two pieces looked so pretty all pinned out. But, as soon as I took the pins away, the edges just curled in along the line of YO's. I must have done something wrong with that too. I guess I'll have to try ironing it or something.

Ugh. I'm not happy. I put so much work in, and it's now a curly, seamy mess.

It's sitting in the spare room just now, out of sight. I'm not even going to post a picture, because the process of setting one up would be too much. It's just going to sit there, thinking about what it's done, till it decides to play nice, and block properly. (I think I can cope with the squiggly seaming if it blocks next time) It's weird though, the inside portion is blocked fine, the YO's are staying in place and everything. It's just that the edges are curling in on themselves. I'll have to figure out what went wrong. After a strong drink. :)