Don't get me wrong--it's a beautiful sweater. It's going to look great on him and the style really suits his personality. But there are so many things about it that just make me want to slit my wrists:
1. Sewing. I am a TERRIBLE sew-er. I cannot do a proper mattress stitch to save my life. I usually just end up whip stitching everything together and praying that it looks OK on the right side (there, my secret is out. Happy?). Instead of picking a nice, simple, top-down raglan, he picked the one sweater pattern I OWN that is knit flat in SIX pieces. Two sleeves, two bottom sections (front and back) and two yoke/top/cable sections (front and back). To be fair, when I first looked at it, I thought it was eight pieces, but apparently you pick up the stitches for the top of the chest from the side of the cable, which leads me to...
2. Picking up stitches. I don't mind picking up a few stitches off a side for a bag or sock gusset or whatever. However, this pattern requires me to pick up like 6,812 stitches along the long side of the cable pattern TWICE. In charcoal gray nubbly cotton yarn that breaks if you breathe on it too hard. Fun times. It's going to be impossible to see!
3. Purling. I don't like purling. I know I'm not alone here, but man, I really don't like it. The whole sweater is purling. The right sides are an equal proportion of knit and purl, and the wrong sides are all purl all the time. Grrr.
4. Ribbing. See purling, above. The whole thing is ribbed in some funky 3x3 garter-rib-type-thing. Except where it's cabled (which I don't mind).
4. Cotton (or cotton/silk blend) yarn. Ow. My hands hurt. This yarn (Rowan Summer Tweed) is so beautiful, but it's really still and almost feels papery--like paper mache or powdery newspaper. It's very hard on your hands. And there is NO give to it.
5. Dark/black yarn. You can't see your stitches at all! I always thought, "oh, please. I've worked with chocolate brown yarn and I could see that fine. How much worse can it be?" A lot. That's how much. It's a black hole of suck.
6. Vague patterns that assume you know what you're doing. It's a Rowan pattern. It pretty much just says: "Knit the sweater. Seam. Block." And that's the pattern.
7. The metric system. I know it technically makes more sense than the imperial system, but damn. I hate centimeters.
OK, that's out of my system now. I may need a break from this for a little while... like the whole month of October. It'll be much better Thanksgiving knitting, I think. I want to relax right now, chill out and knit things I enjoy. I have no doubt that this sweater will be fantastic once it's finished and that Henry will love it, but it's just not fun knitting. From now until November, only fun knitting will be allowed. Besides, I'm not knitting for anyone else for Christmas. I put my foot down on gift knitting after my frenzied sweat-shop experience before we went to South Africa. But hubby doesn't count.
In other news, I have accomplished none of the things I promised in my last post. No more mohair blanket strips, no more 4" squares, and no finished giant sock monkey. But that last one is not my fault! I ran out of yarn like an inch and a half from being finished with the final arm. I had to order more and it just arrived today. So that will get finished soon. The blanket, however, is still on the back burner. It's still too hot here, sorry.
Instead of doing any of the things I promised, I did these:
Ballband Dishcloth by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne in Lily Sugar 'n Creme
and this:
Moebius Cowl by Cat Bordhi in Rowan Tapestry
Hey, what can I say? I wanted to do something fun and easy (but not just boring garter stitch), and then I wanted to do something really challenging. I had fun. It went well. I would do it again. The Ballband Dishcloths are SO MUCH FUN. I want to make stacks of them. And after watching Cat Bordhi's YouTube video on the Moebius Cast-on, it made total sense and only took me one try! It was fantastic. A blast to knit, really, and quick once the first couple rows are donw. She is a genius. So, really, everything worked out perfectly--I was happy, the knitting went smoothly, and that's all that matters, right? Not some arbitrary self-imposed goal.
Oh, and remember my issues with the increases for Skylla? Yeah, I found Cat's videos like two weeks too late. She has one on her LLinc and LRinc decreases and the LLinc is the one I needed. NOW I get it perfectly. Oh well. I'll just have to knit another one. My mom wants one to store needlepoint notions in. I don't think I'll tell her what it's really for...
Next time (for real this time): Socktober!
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