Knitting Diva: I fought the Sweater and ...

I WON!
But OH it was painful.

This was one of those projects that gave me problems every step of the way. It's a ballet sweater knit top down and I got stuck right after taking the stitches off for the sleeves. The project was tossed into a bag and forgotten.

Then I started using Ravelry. I added all my projects and each day I would see that project just sitting here.

I picked it back up, figured out where I was in the pattern (why oh why when I stop working on something don't I make note of where I am) and started again. This progressed with me knitting 15 rows and ripping back 6. This process did not change. WHY! Good greif, if I knew what was causing me to make one STUPID mistake after another, I would have stopped doing that!!! Finally Finally FINALLY I finished the body and started on the sleeves.

That's when the sweater really started driving me crazy. And the worst thing was I couldn't blame the pattern; the pattern wasn't wrong. I couldn't blame the number of stitches; I only had 46 (oh how embarassing). I couldn't blame my husband, dog, or kids. OH MY ***, there's only one person to blame. Sigh.

The sleeves progressed, I use that word loosely, with me knitting all week and then on Sat. ripping out about 2/3rds. The first sleeve I had to rip back 3 times to the beginning. On the 4th try I slowly made progress, always ripping back between 1/2 and 1/3 of previous work. I finally bound off and started the second sleeve. This sleeve went better but I still ripped back 6-12 rows every 3 days.

Then the great day arrived and the second sleeve was to the point I needed to measure it against the first sleeve to see where to start the cuff. I layed the sleeves on top of each other and ... something didn't look right. The first and second sleeve didn't match at the join. I puzzled and puzzled and then decided to try it on ...........

You will not believe this, I know I couldn't, but when I picked up the live stitches on the first sleeve for the 4th time, the front, which is small had flipped over and I HAD KNITTED THE SLEEVE ON THE WRONG SIDE.

Can you freeking believe this! No way. No way. But yes and deedy do it was true. The sweater was busting a gut laughing and I stood there stunned and wondering if this yarn was toxic to burn. I wanted to cry, I wanted to swear, I wanted to kick something, but I just couldn't move or blink.

This was Sat. about 10p. I sat down hard and thought about that week. Hmmm let me see.

Sunday I went to Joce's with a problem on the Diagonals in Flight sweater and we figured out I needed to rip back almost 1/2 (error in the pattern).

Monday I knitted on the 2nd sleeve.

Tuesday I did not knit (I was teaching knitting ROFL - ya like that's something I should be doing).

Wednesday I knit some on the sleeve and discovered I needed to rip back to before where I was Monday.

Thursday I made progress on the 2nd sleeve.

Friday evening I discovered that I had forgot to slip the first stitch on a scarf I was making and had to rip that back by 1/3. I worked on the sleeve and finished the night by ripping back to where I ended Thur.

Sat. I discovered sleeve one was inside out.

Boy what a great week.

I went to bed with a scarf that was one third shorter, a sweater front that was one half shorter, and a ballet sweater with only one sleeve, which was 8 rows longer than it should be to start the cuff.

The funny thing was I still wanted the ballet sweater. Usually when a project gives me 1/2 this much trouble I start hating it. And it basically gets shoved in a corner never to heard of again. Another thing I noticed is that the yarn held up really well. Some yarn had be knitted and ripped 4 or 5 times and still looked great. This tells me the sweater will wear well.

So I continued. It had got to the point that I felt it was either it or ME. I might have been loosing my grip on reality. LOL

Then the evening arrived where I finally finished the knitting and tried it on to see how long to make the sleeves,.

And #$%^&*()!! the underarms were too tight. I just couldn't believe it. I wanted to throw myself on the floor and howl. Why or why are the knitting fates so against me making this sweater? What have I done to upset them? Why do they hate this yarn this project?

That night I finished the sleeves, threw the sweater in my knitting chest and stormed off to bed. The next day I had a plan. I would use dowels to block the arm holes as big as possible and if that didn't work, I'd decide if I was going to give it away or shredded it.