Major Knitting Fail

Last night I felt how Maurice looked...sad.

I finished the Jewel cowl that I had been working on...but as I came near the end I started to have that feeling that something wasn't quite right.  So I looked at the cowl, and then I looked at the pattern, and at some of the other completed projects on Ravelry.  Something wasn't right, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  Checked the pattern again - yup, I was following the directions properly, everything seemed in order.  So I figured I would just finish and bind off, and then evaluate.  And maybe that gut feeling I had was just wrong.  So I did...and it quickly became evident that my gut feeling had not been wrong.  Let me tell you, it was (and still is) SMALL.
So as I was taking Maurice for a quick walk last night I was mulling things over in my head and came to an awful realization.  As I mention in this post, this is actually my second go round at this project.  I had to undo the first one. 
When I started the second one I stupidly just grabbed the needles that I had been using from the first project, which happened to be a few sized smaller than the ones I should have used this time!  So I used size 5US circulars instead of size 8US...resulting in a very small cowl...which needs undoing AGAIN.  AHHH!!!

So much for making this a Christmas gift.  I was too disheartened to even take any pictures of the finished project last night.  Maybe I will take some pictures of the undoing this time.
On to tea cozy knitting I go...