2009: A year with big goals and real potential.
One such goal is knitting a sweater that fits. Yes, a simple goal, but one I have failed to achieve as of yet. How embarrassing to admit!
I've cast on and frogged dozens of sweaters in my life. There was always a Problem. Sometimes it was the yarn, sometimes the pattern. Often it was the knitting. The story is nearly the same every time.
It was two years ago I attempted to make a simple cardigan.
I wanted a raglan style cardigan that I could fall in love with. A sweater that I would end up wearing every day. A simple, natural, old fashioned, plain-and-tall hand knit cardigan. Alas! It was not meant to be.
If I could pinpoint where the sweater went wrong I would say it was in the expectations phase. I wanted the sweater to be what it could never be. I was looking for the stuff only dreams are made of... cozy, soft, perfect, timeless, classic, flattering, etc. I may as well been hoping to knit a unicorn. That was the first problem.
I had enough natural wool to make the project, but there were many questions. Could a girl my size, shape and complexion look okay in a bulky knit shapeless, colorless sweater? Probably not. Was my gauge consistent? Not especially. Did I knit the whole thing anyway, including seaming and weaving in the loose ends perfectly? Of course. I'm no amateur.
Put kindly, the sweater could have fit a small horse. More honestly, it would have fit a full grown alpha-male gorilla. I wore it around the house for a day or two, in denial. I kept checking the mirror to see if it looked okay, and it never did. I posed like they do in knitting magazines when the shaping on a garment is bad. I hugged myself, I reached for an apple in an imaginary tree, and I twirled around, laughing. It helped a little, but the sweater was hopeless.
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It was The Stupid Sweater. I undid everything and returned the wool from beast to balls, which now live in a rubbermaid container in my basement. Recently I made leg warmers out of 2 of the balls:
Knitting the yarn into something new helped erase the memory of the ugly. But what about some new yarn, a new pattern, and a new start?
Pattern:
Glee by Zephyr Style.
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts
Socks That Rock Heavyweight in color Mossay.
Progress:
I got pretty far on the medium size and then I tried it on... I'm knitting the small size now. What's a sweater without some frogging? I would have tried it on sooner but it's always too cold! To try on a sweater! O the irony!
In summary, this could be the sweater that breaks the curse. Then again, so much can still go wrong. I remain hopeful.
