Un Knitting

Brace yourselves, it’s not good news. In a dreadful turn of events, both the gansey and the shawl took a swim in the frog pond this weekend.

Things were ok with the gansey. The gussets were coming along, the pattern was showing up nicely…it was all good. I even remember thinking that it was sort of incredible that it was going so well. It’s not really often that you just pick up a sweater and knit, especially one you’re designing on the fly.

Beforefrgan829

I was surprised that the knitting fates could resist the urge to point out my failure to plan. (That sort of thing is usually irresistible to them, eh?) I knit merrily along and I made it all the way up to the end of the gussets before I figured it out. I decreased every other round instead of every third round. You can imagine what sort of difference having ONE THIRD more rounds makes to the length of the gussets…and to the sweater. This mistake is my least favourite kind. It’s one of the ones that are entirely my fault. Beth says to decrease every third round. I did not follow the word of Beth closely enough. I skimmed Beth. I looked at the pictures, I thought “yeah, yeah, diamonds in the armpits. Got it.” and I did not read the charts for the gussets. I was too good for Beth’s charts, and now I am punished. I accept this, and I pulled it off the needles.

Gisswide829

See how wide the gusset becomes so quickly? If I kept increasing at this speed, by the time the gusset was the right length it would be so wide that it would wing out from under Joe’s armpits towards his nipples like a woollen version of half a missile bra like Madonna used to wear. That’s a good look.

While it was off the needle I took the opportunity to try it on Joe, and discovered that it’s a pretty good thing that I’m a lazy slacker who didn’t check the charts, since I started the entire gusset at least an inch too soon, and that error, combined with the too short gusset almost made Joe a gansey that would proudly have displayed the gentleman’s full on mature man belly button. (I firmly believe that there is no amount of elegance a man can carry himself with that will pull off that look, and further to that, I can’t let Joe wear a belly-shirt and then insist that his daughters cover up. They’d all want belly-ganseys too and soon the standard for elegance in this house would be in the dumper.) The good news is that the sweater is the right width. When I pin down length things are really going to come together. (Assuming ripping back several inches is enough penance for the knitting muses. You never know what will satisfy them. )

The shawl….the shawl I’m not ready to talk about. The pain is too fresh. Let’s just say that I apparently cannot count to seven. At all. Ever. The shawl and I have gone to separate corners until I can bring myself to tink back another row or two, or fifteen..or whenever the last time I counted to seven correctly was. Let’s leave it at that.

In the meantime, I’m going to distract you from my bad knitting by adding more stuff to the tour page:



-The time for the Powells event is 7:30

– I’m going to go to Knitty City after the Knit Out in NYC on the 17th – to sign books and hang out (I won’t be giving a talk there.)

-November 5th I’ll be speaking at The 2nd Annual Fall in Knits Benefit Fashion Event for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, CT Affiliate, 2pm at the Granby Memorial High School (hosted by
Marji’s Yarncrafts)