Don't make these mistakes!

A couple of years ago, a dear friend gifted me a beautiful Odessa hat. My sweet daughter promptly stole it from me. While she loves the hat, it isn't her favorite color. I decided to go ahead and knit her another Odessa in the turquoise she so loves.

Mistake 1: not printing out the pattern. The Odessa was originally published in MagKnits, an online zine that closed up a while back. The pattern has been moved to Ravelry, but I had never joined. If you're at all interested, do request an invitation, it only takes a few days! So I got about as web savvy as I could (read: not at all) and plugged the old Magknits link into the Wayback Machine, and I got my pattern.

Mistake 2: cheap yarn. OK, pure laziness on my part. My local yarn shops aren't all that local, or they don't have convenient hours. Thirty minute drive to a yarn shop, or hit the yarn aisle when I'm at Michaels three times a week? Sadly, I bought the yarn at Michaels, and it was cheap Red Heart. I was forced into it by weight and color--they do have a few decent balls of yarn there, but none suitable for the Odessa.

Mistake 3: not making a swatch. OK, more laziness. But I'm not a master knitter, so I can't even wrap my brain around swatching this pattern. It's knit in the round, so I'd have to basically knit up a hat to get a swatch anyway. See where this is going?

The finished project:


It doesn't look terrible lying flat. But it's too big for Emmy. It's OK, I'll wear it, but it's nowhere near as lovely as the gifted Odessa. Let's just say that Red Heart DK isn't at all DK. It's more like worsted. Plus, my hands started to hurt after a couple of hours of knitting. I hate hate hate it when yarn creaks. Lessons learned! I'll hit the yarn shop after Thanksgiving and find some proper yarn. I still have half a ball of crummy Red Heart left. I swear I'd burn it if I knew it wouldn't release toxic gasses and immediately kill off an acre of rainforest!