wrong, wronger, wrongest

I am wondering just how much wronger I can get the jumper that I cast on this afternoon to be. Incidentally, please don't mention the tank top: after spending a few evenings holding it up against my expanded post-Christmas belly I've left it in the bottom of a bag in the hope that it'll grow on it's own, or I'll shrink: the former being more likely, frankly.

I'm getting used to the idea that I have to cast on at least three times because the yarn is too loose, or too tight, or there's not enough yarn. It appears that I am hopelessly incapable of counting accurately (in ones, mark you) any number of stitches over 50. I can make 122 carefully cast on stitches come out at 120, 123, 124 and finally 122 in four consecutive counts. When I knitted the buggering thing it was actually 124, so at least I was right once. Fortunately I am newly skilled in decreasing, so I fudged the ends a bit, and then a bit more until I had the correct number of stitches, at which point I set off merrily: knit 4 purl 4 knit 5 purl 4 knit 4. It appears that I can't count to four either. I am also newly skilled in knitting backwards.

Still, at least I did a swatch before I went out and bought 6 balls of variegated yarn, so I knew that it looked OK knitted up and I am definitely not going to be left with another guilty bag stashed behind a chair. Except the swatch was smaller than 122 stitches: a nice manageably countable amount (24), and now I look at my inch-long garment, carefully not wondering if I really did do a row of purl instead of a row of knit in row 7, the material looks a bit...nasty. The colours don't blend as nicely as they did in the swatch. They hardly blend at all. The result is a bit like mint raspberry ripple, which no-one has invented because mint raspberry ripple looks nasty.

Shit.

I'm going to knit a bit more, and then look at it in the daylight before I give up and go back to knitting scarves for ever, in which case everyone I know in the entire world will be getting a scarf made from Twilley's Freedom Spirit.

P.S. Before this fiasco I made a hat. The hat was OK, actually, which s is lucky because today I have had a quite rubbish haircut. I have also fallen down the stairs and hurt my foot. Today is not going terribly well, but at least today I didn't stand crying in the actual public street like I did yesterday (really, don't ask). Yes, I'm having a brilliant holiday, thanks.