12/3 - DONE! I said I’d finish it today even if it killed me, and I’m still here and it’s finished!

12/2 - stopping at 23 stitches between markers on plate, as that seems to be plenty large for my donut. Instead of making two plates and seaming them, I’ll be doing two rounds of purl stitches to create a ridge, then reversing the directions for the center-out plate (decreasing where it says to increase) to the center. I’ll stuff it as I go.

11/28 - Donut sewn and stuffed. Used all of a 10 oz bag of polyester fiberfill.

11/18 - Donut knitting is done (finally)! I need to weave in the ends and toss it in the washing machine before seaming and stuffing. (And, of course, I did the laundry yesterday.)
I did run out of green entirely and so a good chunk of the last two repeats is pure white. I’m not thrilled, but since a large part of the point here is to use up yarn, I don’t see any point in going out to buy more green.

11/15 - My yarn calculations were apparently off, and I’m running out of green. I don’t want to buy more, so I’m switching the last two repeats (which are going to be at the back) to just 1 strand green + 1 strand white (no colorwork).

10/30 - My stitch gauge is spot on, but my row gauge is a little short. I’ll need to do two extra repeats on the donut to make it the correct final length.

9/10 - Found my size 6 circular. Am working with it, and gauge is easy to get.

9/8 - The donut ring seemed a bit small to me, so I remeasured the gauge. I’m getting 5 st/7 rows per inch, while the pattern calls for 4.5 st/6 rows per inch. I’ll think about it, but I suspect I will be frogging it and retrying (I’d initially gotten a gauge too far the other direction and was trying to make my stitches tight, so I’d keep the same needle size with a more natural tension).

7/6 - Slow going, as the cotton is very hard on my hands when held doubled and worked at an intentionally tight gauge. That being said, the pattern is very clear and coming along well so far.

6/21 - I’ve had this cotton in my stash for ages and it needs a project. My dog needs a bed near my craft area and likes to rest her chin on things, so this pattern seems perfect. (Fortunately she’s light tan, so a partly white bed works!)

I’m going to be holding two strands together to get a dense fabric, green and white together for most of it, and green or white alone for the patterned area (I wound cakes in the correct colors to make this easier). I’m planning on charting Lily’s name to replace part of the paw prints.

Size 6 needles would probably be slightly better, but I don’t have any large enough, so I’m going to be working with size 7 and making sure to keep a tight tension.