Snowflakes for Hanukkah

I am determined to have a decent go at my first attempt at Cable Knits.

I have a friend who will be celebrating her Bat Mitzvah during Hanukkah this year. When she mentioned she needed a new Kipot that wasn't plain, but not too fancy either. I KNEW I could find something to make for her. Little did I know this "small project" would kick my butt more than once this week.

First I flexed my Google Fu and looked for patterns for "snowflakes"

3 hours and 8000 hits later I found one! This Berroco Snowflake pattern was a free download able PDF.

OK looks simple....
My first challenge was that it works from the outside in, my mind has issues working flat pieces from the outside in.
Second was it wasn't in the round and I hate seams, but I would manage.
third, I don't own a cable needle and I have NEVER stitched a cabled anything in my life.

Found some simple baby yarn in my stashes, grabbed the smallest cabled needles I own (size 7) and started.

Cast on, started the first row and ended up with too many stitches.
Frogged it and started over.

Cast on, marking the 6 sections, figured out what I did wrong the first time and used a diaper pin as a cable needle and got to row 3 before I screwed up the counts again.
Frogged it, found thinner yarn and started over again.

Cast on, marking sections, get to row 5 and realize that even though it says gauge Isn't important on the pattern, it looks like crap, I wasn't going for lace
Frogged it again.

Went to local yarn store, pattern in hand. Showed the nice lady there what I was trying to make, and asked her what needles and yarn I should use. Got that all ironed out, bought a set of wood cable needles (short ones for cable stitches, not the long ones attached together that I knit everything on) and a ball of Drops Fable Superwash sock yarn to try again with.

NOW I have started again, using my little size 3 double points...have I mentioned I hate double points? Yeah, I ALWAYS loose stitches off the back end when I use DP's.

So I am using a set of sz.3 DP's that I made little plugs for the ends of out of some hair ties, the same hair ties I was using as markers lol.

I also decided to knit this up as a round because I have a total inability to leave any recipe, pattern or set of instructions alone.
All of my even numbered rows will now be reversed. Where the pattern says Pearl, I knit. Where it says knit, I pearl. But only on the even numbered rows.

It took 3 starts (due to dropping stitches off the back ends of my DP's) but I made it through row 4.


We shall see how this goes.