Beginning at the End
So I start writing in the knitting blog as I am ending a project - my first sweater.
My first Sweater was a journey into tears and pain - not being satisfied with doing something simple, the only project that gave me a thrill was a pattern called Durrow. The cables on the arms just filled me with avaricious glee. But since it was my first sweater, I decided to be prepared for the chance that things did not go well. This means that I went cheap on the yarn. My choice was Briggs & Little Canadian Heritage - 100% wool in the good old scratchy yarn tradition, and 220 yard skeins at 5 bucks a go. I picked up 5 hanks of black, since I figured no self-respecting yarn punk would knit a first sweater in anything but black. I merrily knitted the front, the back, the sleeves, and seamed it all together.
Those of you who have knit Durrow already know what happened - the neckline was the size of Lake Ontario. but that wasn’t enough disaster for this yarn mage, oh nooo. my back, my front, my sleeves, they didn’t line up properly at all. I have no real idea what happened. It frustrated me so much I declared that I was swearing off sweaters forever.
And yeah, that lasted for about three days. then I pulled the pieces apart and started casting on to make a top down in the round sweater with raglan increases, starting the durrow cable panel on the arms as I went along. I was totally flying by the seat of my pants, freestyling everything but the sleeve cables.
But I lost interest in the sweater and left it half done and on the needles for months. literally, I had touched it since last year. Then Thursday night I picked it up and went on the Sleeve Island Death March, relentlessly going after that chart just to get it done. I’m off sleeve island now, and I’m just going to knit up the body until there is no more yarn left.
The Sweater is going to look like hell. Once I get photos published of it I will have saved myself from requests for boyfriend sweaters forever. But I will have finished my first sweater, a challenge that took eight months.
And guess what? I’m going to do another. But I just don’t learn to take things slowly, at all, so I’m going to design one.
Top-down, seamless, in the round construction.
OF COURSE.
