I think I finally have it figured out.

After a year and a half, at least, of having a specific knitting blog, as opposed to a knittingandwhatever blog largely read by non-knitters, I think I have finally figured out what knit bloggers blog about.

They blog about their knitting.

I mean, obviously, but they blog about the KNITTING part, not just the finished-object-please-look part.

So here is some bloggery about my current knitting project. Pull your bifocals down to the perfect spot and pretend the post starts here:

Amy March's Slippers...

I read the I Hate to Cook Book long before I realized how much I really do hate to cook, just because it is funny. And one of the ways it is funny is that the author will do things like write "seven happiness food-thing" and start off with a list like

1. Has only four ingredients
2. If you substitute three of them, it still works
3. You don't need a knife...

You know, the sort of things that when you have the flu, and you hated to cook to begin with, and four children under the age of six are wailing for food, really matter, as opposed to seven ways in which it is delicious.

Well, I took one look at this pattern and thought it was the "Some number of happiness slipper pattern" for the following reasons:

1. Takes only about 100 yards of yarn

2. Knits up on size ten needles and from the commentary seems like she finished a pair plus in one day

3. No binding off (Not that I hate binding off so very much, but saves time)

4. You can tart it up with fancy ribbons if you have more money than time

5. They are cute

6. They are not weird, so your most conservative and boring relatives would like them, but see #4 regarding what you can do with dismembered Barbie doll parts for your more interesting folks...

7. The pattern is free.

The pattern is also written in a funny style, so a fun read.

Now they did a knit along on Ravelry with these, and it certainly seemed from the forum that people were ending up with wearable slippers that looked like the pictures, but as usual I have, with very little effort, found ways to complicate this simple, fast fun pattern and turn it into, if not a death march, still not exactly a stroll down lover's lane as it certainly looked like it ought to be.

Now I am not using the right yarn, of course, because I do not buy Rowan yarn. I do not even look at Rowan yarn. Not even on Elann.com. No, I have some nice...well, I forget what you call it, but it is really soft and furry and I got it on sale at Smiley's and when I triple stranded it and knit it up on size 8's instead of size ten's, I got stitch gauge.

Row gauge must be off though. I did exactly the number of rows required, and instead of coming halfway up the foot, it sort of covers the toes. Cute. Very fuzzy. I am practically breaking my arms knitting it up (Probably only needed two strands) but I am getting stitch guage. The row guage, though, seems to be off by a factor of either 2 or one half. I never get math terms straight. Anyway, the front is half as long as it should be.

Ignoring the fact that this surely must mean it is also taking much, much more yarn than I thought, I leave that slipper in medias res and cast on with a different yarn, Lion Brand Wool-ease Gargantua, or whatever they call it. It is supposed to yield, I dunno, 10 or eleven or nine or something like that stitches to four inches instead of twelve, but that seems to me to be a simple matter of mind and needle size over the matter. I like things you put on your feet knitted firmly anyway, so that you are really walking on slipper, rather than holes in stitches.

Sure enough, same problem again. The yarn is too big. If anything, the stitches should be bigger in one direction or the other. Nope. Shorter.

Now I realize that I can just do twice as many rows to get up to the point on the foot where the front is supposed to end, but this is already violating happiness number one and the all important happiness number two, which implies that this knit will not be a never ending pain in the Aspirin. And I am not entirely sure where we are on five and six.

I knew I was on the slippery slope away from "quick simple and you barely need to think about 'em" when I found out recipient had wood floors and that I would be buying and applying for the first time the dippit made famous by Vamanta, knitting over in Edith's house there, but I thought I was only partly down the slope. I am currently at the bottom, heels over teacup, feeling like a Beatrix Potter Character that is not quite getting the best of the situation.

Is it just me?