Swatching all day, ripping all night

Ah swatching, I will admit it is useful, but oh how I hate it. Yesterday alone I must have made about 6 of the stupid things, nearly every one dashing my hopes that it would be my last. After completely failing to decide on a new project, I put all thoughts of knitting temporarily aside and dived into my stash looking for something suitable for a swap I'm taking part in. As I'd suspected there was nothing inspiring lurking there, but I did come across some Wendy Freedom Wool in chunky which looked promising for Lollie. Could Lollie be back on? 3 swatches later I can safely say no, Lollie is not back on, but as I had Twisted Woolly Toppers open I rediscovered Tinker and wondered if the Azapa I'd originally wanted to use for Lollie might do for that instead. It took a couple more swatches but yes it will indeed do. Hoo-flippin-ray!

Not much to look at yet

Of course, nothing is ever that easy (ha ha ha, easy? ha ha) and after a slow cable cast on and 1 set up row I started to cable and.....nope the instructions made no sense. The chart just didn't work with what I had on my needles and I could go no further. I checked the Woolly Wormhead board on Ravelry because surely someone else must have had trouble making sense of this? Nope, nothing. What was I missing? I am ashamed to admit that it probably took me another 20 minutes to realise that *P2,K2,P2* does not equal *P2,K2* in any way at all. So back to the beginning it was for me. All is fixed now and I think I've got it right. I have a feeling this is going to take a wee while though, the (admittedly uncomplicated) cable pattern is repeated every 6 stitches and there are cables on nearly every row so an FO is probably not all that imminent. It's a cute hat though, it will be worth it.

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