Dumbest knitting mistake you've made

[stitchwitch]

With all the disheartened newbies lately, I thought it would be fun to see how many crazy knitting mistakes some of us have made. For some, it will be a trip down memory lane, for others it will simply be looking back at yesterday.
I'll start, as mentioned in another thread, I bought yarn for a sweater at Joann's and failed to check dye lot. I now have a multicolored sweater. Sweater looks good from a distance but there's no way I can wear it out in public.

[MrTea]

I once tried to substitute a bulky yarn for a DK yarn in a stuffed animal pattern. I got days into it before I realized that the end product was going to be life sized.

That was pretty dumb. Live and learn.

[Ingrid]

I did the exact same thing this summer. I knitted the sleeves first, then the body. I didn't notice that one of the sleeves was darker half-way up. It didn't show up until I took it outside in the sun to sew the sleeves on. It looked as if I had dunked my one arm in water up to the elbow. It was the bottom of the sleeve, too, so I had to do the whole thing over.

Another comedy of errors was a Fair Isle that I did. First, after several inches I realized that I hadn't followed the chart right and had to take that all out. Then I got up to the chest and just couldn't center the motif on the back and front correctly--I was off by a pattern repeat and had to take the entire thing out. It's a good thing, too, though. I tried it on when I got it off the needles and it was waaaay too small. I love the sweater now, though!

Another had sleeves that would have fit The Hulk. They were knit on, so I had to take them out and re-knit.

[ChroniclesofYarnia]

My dumbest, and the one I continue to make, is not changing needle sizes after doing ribbing. I'll get halfway done with a sweater and it will just seem small, and then I will run around the house cursing and making my husband rip it out.

Another one I do is start knitting with the tail of my cast on. Doh!

[brendajos]

ummm...Buying Red Heart?

[Stiney]

I was knitting in the round for a baby all over-warm-thingy. (I don't know what the terminology is. It has hoods and sleeves and a drawstring at the feet.) First, there was a knot in the yarn, so I cut out the knot and joined the yarn. And got a few rounds up and realized I had too many stitches, and it was in Baby Homespun, so I couldn't just frog back to the mistake because I was having a hard time telling stitches apart.

So I frogged it, cast on, and joined it upside down. Got about 6 inches before I realized that it was moebius style. Ripped it back, and cast on again.

I'm up to the armholes now, and just hoping I don't do anything else stupid. I might cry.

[AnreeAce]

I bought about $60 worth of Homespun to make a cabled throw blanket.

I was having such a hard time working with it. It was splitty and wanted to knot around itself, and it was so fuzzy-odd that I couldn't see the cable pattern I was working on.

It was only after I got about 5 inches done on the first strip that it occurred to me to do a search on the forum to see what other knitters thought about it.

Imagine my relief to discover that Homespun has about a 90% hatred rating around here (apologies to the folks who actually enjoy working with it, I know you're here too).

Thankfully, I'd saved the receipt!

Lesson learned: solicit opinions before buying yarn!

[janelanespaintbrush]

One thing that I can't seem to stop myself from doing is continuously frogging and restarting a project. I invariably end up with a worse looking piece since yarn has this funny tendency to get really tatty and splitty after it's been reworked say, a half-dozen times. What makes it even worse is that sometimes, if it's a very thin yarn (as for socks), it becomes so crimped after frogging that I'll have to wet and straighten it before starting again because if I don't, the tension will be all goofy. Oh yeah. Here's a good one -- with one particular yarn that I used recently, a few bits of tweed would come off every time I frogged, so the beginning part of the piece, which had been reworked the most, was noticeability "balder" than the rest of it. I actually ending up doing some "transplanting" to even it out.

[snowbear]

My first sweater was for my granddaughter, age 11 months. I listened to a few "experts" as to how to read the pattern to size, instead of actually putting the inches of the thing down and then measuring said granddaughter. (the experts didn't have children) Well, when it was finished, her mother could have worn it had she not been breast feeding.

My son-in-law just looked at it and said it was nice, my daughter lol for several minutes. Then said "I'll keep it for her when she's in Jr. High mom, "

The hours I poured into that thing, lol Oh well, from now on, I always write down the measurements, and then look to see how the size equates to actually clothing sizes. lol

[1to1]

This is nothing major but after knitting a few rows, the long tail was in the way so I cut it, or so I though--I had cut the working yarn.