Anyone else think it is just a wee bit nuts* to try to knit a sweater in the month of November when, in all likelihood, we are frantically trying to complete holiday gifts?
*Full disclosure: like everyone else, I am participating in NaKniSweMo.
However, my sweater-knitting month has taken an odd turn. I vowed, initially, to finish
Juno entirely and complete the back of
Malt (scroll down; which would make it NaCroSweMo as it's crochet, but whatever). Failing that, I would knit myself another
ribwarmer (scroll down).
No sooner had I made the above-mentioned vow that it occurred to me that Juno really ought to be frogged. The knitting is uneven since I pick it up for a row or two, and then put it back. I dislike my cast-on (idiotically decided to use backward loop!? WTF, woman?). Most critically, however, I don't think Scottish Tweed is quite fluffy enough. The sweater looks holey, even though I do have gauge and everyone else in the world has done it in Scottish Tweed and come up with a perfectly good sweater.
So, I cast on a new ribwarmer in two shades of
Not-Really-That-Big Kuryeon sometime last week and got a few ridges into it (switching the colors every other row, or something) and put it in one of my numerous knitting bags.
On Friday afternoon, I found myself poking around
Twist Collective and swiftly fell in love with
Gytha (to knit sometime),
Vivian (to knit fairly soon) and
Sweetpea (knit me now, knit me now, knit me now). I had no bulky weight yarn in the stash, so I subtly persuaded my husband to take me to
Creative Hands on Saturday ("I'll go with you to the car wash if we can pop into Creative Hands after").
With 10 balls (all they had) of
Cascade Lana Grande in a beautiful foresty green (and two hanks of Kraemer
Yarns' Fountain Hill -- how'd they get in there?), I was out of the shop in about 10 minutes and spent less than $100 (a personal record). I couldn't wait to get home to cast on Sweetpea and see how far I could get before we left for our play (
Ionesco's Victims of Duty at the Exit) later that evening.
I was nearly done with the waist shaping when it was time to go. The play was short and we were keyed up when we got back, so I knit some more before going to bed. After breakfast and dog-walking on Sunday, I knit and knit and knit and reached the start of the armhole shaping. I held the sweater up to myself and felt a hot creeping sensation start up my neck and ripple across my scalp. The thing was. Humongous.
It wasn't gauge. It was knitter's dysmorphic disorder. I had a crazy moment of deciding to knit an extra large (despite the fact that I am a medium, and only bought yarn enough for a large -- I like to have an extra ball, just in case). I had gone through the whole pattern and highlighted all the info for a size extra large without anything striking me as odd.
Even when I realized my beloved Sweetpea would be too big, I nearly just picked up the needles and kept on knitting. After all, I was really far along the back and all that work would be for nothing. But then, the creeping sensation came back. If I went on knitting the too-big sweater I would love but could never wear, I would surely run out of yarn.
It was 1:30. The Niners game had started. I paused and watched that new quarterback whose name escapes me for a second. Whyever did they get rid of Jeff Garcia? He was no Steve Young or Joe Montana, but he was decent. In this fleeting moment of zen, I decided to frog. My husband looked at me out of the corner of his eye and said, "uhm, do you want the tv on? 'Cause I am going to go read...." I muttered something that sounded like "no" and he took off for the bedroom and his book.
Whereupon I cast on all over again for the right size, and sat there on the couch for the remainder of the day. I paused for dogwalking and dinner and then returned to my knitting. In about 8 hours, I knit the entire back of Sweetpea, made both pocket linings, and got through the bottom moss-stitch border on the right front.
Whew!
