Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The Sweater Theory

I have always had in my mind that no matter what or how much I knit, I am not a "real" knitter until I can make myself a cozy sweater that I want to wear every day of my life. This theory does not apply to anyone but myself. But until I can make myself "THE" sweater, I have not yet arrived.
Enter sweater class 2010. I have made sweaters, but in my mind, not a single one is 'THE" sweater. None of them can be thrown on without a bit of coordination. So until this year, I was still on the hunt. Knitter's Palette decided to host a make a sweater of your choice type class, and I was in.
First mistake was in the choosing of the pattern. I couldn't just choose one with shaping and seaming, no no no. I had to go for cables, and CHARTED cables nonetheless. I have never worked from a cable chart ever, but shoot, LET'S GO!
Picked favorite yarn. Ordered, bought, wound in a delightful little ball. Get pattern, look over. Decide it's confusing, but decide to wait until class to have a full on freak out.
Go to class. Gosh, this is confusing, but I got some good guidance from lovely Angela, and onward we go.
Second mistake. I went home fully confident I could make the back all by my lonesome. Never should have left the store. Should have sat there and knit until I finished the back because I have now re-knit the same piece 4 times. Partly because I failed to read, partly because Itchy thinks alpaca is awesome, partly because I can no longer count, and finally because I thought I would get fancy and write out the charted instructions so I could read them but still couldn't count so I ended up knitting for an hour and had one less row and one less stitch after ripping it all out.
Put the fucking knitting down...take a step back....
Picked up those needles, pulled out the fucking pattern, threw out my notes, and read from the chart...very very very very slowly.
Mother-f-ing success.
Only 2 hours spent to get 2 rows in.
If I don't get the best sweater out of this I quit knitting.

1 comment:

aj said...

You are on your way to the best sweater ever!! :)