OFF the needles!!

You may recall back in August I posted about this wrap I was making, called the Color Affection.  Well, I did finally finish it.  I finished it a while ago, but I was so DONE with it at that point, I had to just leave it alone for a while.  I lost my affection for the Color Affection, that is certain.  I do love how it turned out.  I think it is really pretty and the color pattern is great.  But oh, the garter stitch.  And garter stitch, and more and more garter stitch.  Do you see that LONG thick dark red part across the bottom?  Yes indeed, just one row across that area had literally about 500 stitches!  I would sit down to work on this project towards the end and get only one or two rows done before I just couldn't take any more.  Too much garter for me.  Binding off took about 1 1/2 hours.  I am not exaggerating!  Ugh.

I will say that if I had followed the pattern EXACTLY, there would have been a few less stitches across in those final rows.  However my row gauge was a bit shorter than the pattern suggested and since I wanted this wrap to be somewhat wide in the center part, I did add some additional rows back when I was doing the tan part.  And that pretty much made each section have more stitches than the pattern said, which multiplied as I went along!

The clever girl (who is almost 4 1/2), took this picture!  Isn't that something?

I finally wore the wrap recently and received tons of compliments, so the wrap and I are back on good terms again!  It has proved it's standing in my life, I suppose.  Will I be making more of these Color Affection wraps?  Thank you, but no.  I just can't handle that much garter stitch in my life.  I do think this one will become a standard accessory for me, though. Success!

Are you wondering what I might be working on now?  Well, first you have to pinky promise to keep it a SURPRISE for the clever girl.  It is a Christmas present!  Promise??  Okay.  It is a Cinderella Topsy-Turvy Doll, from Jean Greenhowe's Christmas Special knitting pamphlet.  Jean Greenhowe creates patterns for stuffed items (you might say "toys" though I am not sure you'd actually play with all of them, maybe...) that use a medium weight yarn and tiny needles so the stitches are really small and tight.  She adds the cutest details and they are really quite clever.  A very long time ago I made Mr. and Mrs. Snowman/woman dolls, which I still love.  Mr. Snowman has a walking stick that looks like a candy cane and Mrs. Snowwoman has a little umbrella and a hat.  Super cute!  There is also a pattern for an entire nativity in this book, which I would LOVE to create some day.  Tons of work but it would be a treasure forever!

Anyway, the Cinderella doll is currently in the making.  If you aren't familiar with topsy-turvy dolls, they are made such that if you turn the doll one way, she will be wearing the Cinderella-maid type dress, and if you flip her the other way, she will be wearing the Cinderella-ball gown.  My daughter is very much in a princess mode right now (much to my dismay, to be honest..... how did she get so girlie???  Will she grow out of this???) so I thought this would be really a fun gift for her.

I'll let you know when it is completed!!