Eating My Words

"It's a sweater for a baby for goodness sake! How long could it possibly take?!!!" Last night I found those words written on January 5 and ate them. The baby sweater, which turned out to have even less left to do than I thought, has become a royal pain in the . . . er, a royal pain. The pattern calls for sleeve stitches to be picked up (right side facing starting at the underarm) around the armhole and knitted from the top down. No problem, one would think. However, this is to be done before the shoulder seams are joined AND the shoulder stitches are not bound off but have stitch holders in them! What a juggling job that was, trying to keep those stitch holders out of the way and on the wrong side!

Then I thought what kind of hole will I have at the shoulder when I do the three-needle bind off of the shoulder seams that the pattern calls for. I decided I don't want to find out and I don't want to do the control-the-stitch-holder act again for a second sleeve. Right now I plan to block the sweater, three-needle the shoulder seams then pick up the stitches for the sleeves and work my way to the cuff. Easy peasy--I think.

In the meantime, after ripping out the picked up stitches (that I finally got evenly spaced around the opening!), I put it down for the night. I'd had enough. I was not enjoying the process. What to do in the meantime? A bona fide knitter can't just sit. She must knit. My mentor's Three Project Rule allows swatching for another project and it doesn't count as a new project begun. That's what I did! I swatched for a cable sweater, Tierra, that I plan to make with Knit Picks Salishan, 45% wool, 55% Pima Cotton in turquoise.


Back to the baby sweater today. There are a lot of ends I can weave in while making my final decision about the sleeves.

Bona Fide Knitter