Talk about an albatross. This cabled cardigan was just that. I started it May, the eighth (2009), to be exact. It was going to be Elsa's summer sweater because of the short sleeves. The pattern is free. It's called Cabled Raglan Baby Sweater.
And I finally finished all but the sleeves in September. Debated whether to take it with me to Florida for our vacation. I didn't. Vacation? Did someone say vacation? With a ten month old? No way.
Anyway, this sweater taunted me, really. I lacked motivation to finish the sleeves. And the dpns, too.
Which brings up one of my pet peeves with dpns: Why must I buy an entire new set when I've lost one, and only need one to have my five to work on?
Somehow, I imagined that I could lengthen the sleeves on this cardigan and transform it into an article of clothing that might work in autumn and spring, a transitional sweater. But the sleeves are huge. There were like 40 or 50 stitches, at least on each of those sleeves.
I wanted to be done with it. I didn't want to look up how to do sleeve decreases, or do any planning or plotting.
Done. It's done. It's the only thing I've knitted since becoming a mother. Just took me five months. It fits Elsa well. She wore it today. Didn't get any good photos. It was dark this morning and so I resorted to dread flash photography.
She's walking! So every photo I take indoors, despite having a DSLR and thumbing it to the sports setting, is blurred. She has ten teeth, too. I should do a big Elsa update, but I don't know where to start and when to stop. But she's just amazing.
Her Grammy loved it. But Elsa pulled at the button a lot this evening when I picked her up to bring her home. Perhaps the button needs rethinking. It's a button sewn on, but a big snap that actually closes the collar.
Went out right away and bought new yarn to make a darling sweater for Elsa from Vintage Baby Knits, the Floyd Pullover.
Oh, the cables! It was a breeze. A snap. I think I can do cables now. I am liberated from my poor attitude and reluctance to consider cables as worthy of my time. Because cables completely befuddled me in the past. Hooray. This was a great project to ease one into cable-knitting.
What I love about knitting is that I learn something new with every project. I just wish that I could keep everything that I learn in mind so that I stop making the same silly mistakes. And actually, I learned two, or more, things from this project:
- I should knit sleeves first because knitting them last stymies my project;
- Cables are not so daunting after all, can be a bit of fun, and they add challenge and variety to otherwise boring stockinette stitch;
- I loathe knitting with cotton. Something about that nautical cotton (Louisa Harding) was odious;
- I might prefer wooden needles to my slick addi turbos.
I like quirky. I hope my girl does, too.
Oops, I missed my fourth anniversary of blogging at bekka. It was October 5 (2005). Sigh. It doesn't seem that long, but then, also, it seems a lifetime ago.
