A Post to Post
So, I knit.
It's one of those things I always get raised eyebrows about. "You knit? Really..." And it's not a flattering 'Really...,' either. But I'm not bad at it, and I have to say, if you knit a pregnant lady a baby blanket, you are officially BFFs for-ev-ah. As often as I get those skeptical looks about my knitting, I get introduced as "my friend Hayseed; you know, the one who knitted that blanket."
Anyway. This year, I decided that it was finally time to jump off the deep end and knit my father the argyle sweater he's been wanting almost since I started knitting. Which is... going as well as it can go (no patterns exist, it's all intarsia, he likes front-back-and-sleeves argyle, etc.).
I also compounded my stupidity in tackling such a thing by badgering my brother to squire me to the yarn store some months ago, where he proceeded to sullenly look at patterns while he waited for me to finish picking out pretty, pretty sock yarn (I know I have a problem). In so doing, he stumbled across an old pattern for a cricket sweater, and he looked so damn pathetic that I bought the thing (cables on size 3 needles suck).
Well, the long and short of the matter is that if I'm knitting a sweater for my father and a sweater for my brother, my mother would never, ever, under pain of a torturous death forgive me if I didn't knit one for her too.
I kept it simple. Or so I thought. About fifteen years ago, Dawn French (otherwise known as Her Awesomeness) modeled for a knitting pattern book full of these really cool full-figured sweaters, so I picked one I thought my mother would like best.
It took two damn months to get the yarn I wanted (specific weight and color), but I had other things to do, so not a big deal. And after I finished my brother's million-stitch-monstrosity (It took five months and I memorized the pattern. Like, the whole thing. I could knit another one right now without so much as a glance at it. I hate that fucking sweater.), I went ahead and knitted hers up. It only took a couple of weeks.
Aa-nd it's too small. Now, lest fellow knitters start rolling their eyes, allow me to say that I checked my gauge. Twice. The pattern is a 'one size fits all' dealio, and I made a judgment call as to whether or not my mother is that size. I was wrong. It looked a lot bigger on the needles. I slipped it on before I sewed in the sleeves, just to see how it fit, and all I'll say is that there's no way it'll fit my mother.
No problem. I can keep the sleeves, and I've got three and a half skeins left over, so I can even re-start the back. I just need five or six more skeins to redo the front and collar, since there's no way in hell I can take the front and back apart and not have it ending up looking terrible. Even though none of my local yarn shops carry the yarn I want in-store, the Internet is the source of all things, right?
Wrong.
The yarn has been discontinued.
I ordered the stuff in February and didn't get it until the end of April (apparently, the company only does a couple of dye lots a year). Five months later, I'm trolling eBay, buying a skein here and a skein there, because no one sells the stuff any more?
Now, before you think I'm begging for yarn, I'll say that I found enough to finish my project, so it's not like I've exactly wasted those eBay hours. And the sellers were all pretty reasonable -- I wound up getting everything for less than forty bucks total. Which is a deal, considering I was in a bind and would have paid a hell of a lot more.
The point is, I think someone's trying to tell me something. Like never try to knit sweaters as Christmas presents ever again.
Scarves. Next year, everyone's getting a scarf.
It's one of those things I always get raised eyebrows about. "You knit? Really..." And it's not a flattering 'Really...,' either. But I'm not bad at it, and I have to say, if you knit a pregnant lady a baby blanket, you are officially BFFs for-ev-ah. As often as I get those skeptical looks about my knitting, I get introduced as "my friend Hayseed; you know, the one who knitted that blanket."
Anyway. This year, I decided that it was finally time to jump off the deep end and knit my father the argyle sweater he's been wanting almost since I started knitting. Which is... going as well as it can go (no patterns exist, it's all intarsia, he likes front-back-and-sleeves argyle, etc.).
I also compounded my stupidity in tackling such a thing by badgering my brother to squire me to the yarn store some months ago, where he proceeded to sullenly look at patterns while he waited for me to finish picking out pretty, pretty sock yarn (I know I have a problem). In so doing, he stumbled across an old pattern for a cricket sweater, and he looked so damn pathetic that I bought the thing (cables on size 3 needles suck).
Well, the long and short of the matter is that if I'm knitting a sweater for my father and a sweater for my brother, my mother would never, ever, under pain of a torturous death forgive me if I didn't knit one for her too.
I kept it simple. Or so I thought. About fifteen years ago, Dawn French (otherwise known as Her Awesomeness) modeled for a knitting pattern book full of these really cool full-figured sweaters, so I picked one I thought my mother would like best.
It took two damn months to get the yarn I wanted (specific weight and color), but I had other things to do, so not a big deal. And after I finished my brother's million-stitch-monstrosity (It took five months and I memorized the pattern. Like, the whole thing. I could knit another one right now without so much as a glance at it. I hate that fucking sweater.), I went ahead and knitted hers up. It only took a couple of weeks.
Aa-nd it's too small. Now, lest fellow knitters start rolling their eyes, allow me to say that I checked my gauge. Twice. The pattern is a 'one size fits all' dealio, and I made a judgment call as to whether or not my mother is that size. I was wrong. It looked a lot bigger on the needles. I slipped it on before I sewed in the sleeves, just to see how it fit, and all I'll say is that there's no way it'll fit my mother.
No problem. I can keep the sleeves, and I've got three and a half skeins left over, so I can even re-start the back. I just need five or six more skeins to redo the front and collar, since there's no way in hell I can take the front and back apart and not have it ending up looking terrible. Even though none of my local yarn shops carry the yarn I want in-store, the Internet is the source of all things, right?
Wrong.
The yarn has been discontinued.
I ordered the stuff in February and didn't get it until the end of April (apparently, the company only does a couple of dye lots a year). Five months later, I'm trolling eBay, buying a skein here and a skein there, because no one sells the stuff any more?
Now, before you think I'm begging for yarn, I'll say that I found enough to finish my project, so it's not like I've exactly wasted those eBay hours. And the sellers were all pretty reasonable -- I wound up getting everything for less than forty bucks total. Which is a deal, considering I was in a bind and would have paid a hell of a lot more.
The point is, I think someone's trying to tell me something. Like never try to knit sweaters as Christmas presents ever again.
Scarves. Next year, everyone's getting a scarf.