January 17, 2012

I thought it was done. I truly thought that casting on four shawls (plus one secret deadline project) in 14 days would be enough to satisfy the beast that is startitis. But it would seem not.

Saturday morning over coffee I started doing the math for a sweater. Why? For sh*ts and giggles apparently. (I still don’t know why I thought this was a good idea.) Then I charted it all out. (Just to see how the shaping would work in pattern of course.) And then I cast on. (Because the cast on number seemed a little high and I wanted to see it in real life.) At this point I was doomed. I cast on, started knitting, and soon Saturday, Sunday and Monday were all gone in a puff of smoke, while I was left standing there with 5 inches of sweater.

If all of this seems a bit haphazard, and not very well thought it. It was. And I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. I even made a list.

Things that probably could/should have been better planned/thought out before casting on, which will now come around to bit me in the a$$:

1. the needles- one full size women’s cardigan/jacket on 3.00mm needles (that’s tiny folks)- check
2. the steek/yarn combo- three steeks in a superwash merino/silk blend- check
3. the steeks- a knitter who has never done steeks before- check
4. the numbers/design- a knitter/designer who has never successfully completed a sweater before (the Rhinebeck sweater still isn’t finished, and my first sweater doesn’t count, I might have knit a few other sweaters but I obviously wasn’t paying attention)- check
5. the yarn- a full size sweater begun with only one ball of each color on hand- check

Rather than freak out about the fact that I really don’t know what’s happening with this sweater, I tried to convince myself it was going to be ok because I didn’t have a sweaters quantity of yarn. I was knitting with the left overs from the mittens, and even though Cascade Heritage Silk has crazy yardage (437 yards per ball), I would eventually run out of yarn before the sweater was finished. At which point I could put the sweater down, back away slowly and focus on other things. At least until I bought more yarn.

(Which turned out to be this afternoon.)

So armed with two more balls of each color, which I’m guessing will get me through the body (no, I haven’t calculated yardage, remember the whole haphazard thing?), I’m giving up all hope of working on other non-deadline projects, and am just along for the ride.

 

 

 

PS. Aren’t steeks pretty!