Yarn Along

I’ve pulled out my marathon project from before Christmas.  This lay in the back burner for a few months while I decided it’s fate.  It’s a cardigan made out of Madelinetosh Tosh Sock yarn in “ginger” and was my knitting baby for a few months back there.  As I was nearing the waistline of this top-down sweater, I was doubting my decisions for increases where I put them.  I was doubting my shaping choice.  I was debating what sort of edge to put on the front, etc. etc.

I was at the point that I nearly frogged the whole thing.  At that moment of insanity, I decided to back slowly away from this marathon project before it ended up all unwound, and decided in that moment to only frog it under the supervision and support of a knitting friend.

So now, in March, I pull it out of hibernation, and tried it on again.  It needed the body finished, it needed edging, and it needed sleeves.  I fell in love all over again with my design idea and thought I can’t quit this close to the end.  It also dawned on me that I kept doubting the design because I wanted it to have the elements of about 12 different sweaters, and it’s actually only capable of being one sweater.

So I finished the body, I finished the edge, and it just needs the sleeves completed.  After the front edge was finished I tried it on again.  I pulled on it here and there thinking that #1: it’s in desperate need of blocking, and #2: it was missing something.  It looked much more incomplete than my initial idea was. As I was debating over the idea of adding pockets, Knut walked by me.  He looked at me in the mirror with a furrowed brow.

I told him I was thinking maybe pockets.  He shook his head.  “No, it’ needs a belt.  Could you knit one to match?  That’d work.”  My jaw dropped because he was so right.  I immediately envisioned a little lace belt that matched the lace in the back of the cardi.  The picture of it done flashed in my head and I was smiling with excitement, although a little jealous I didn’t think of it first.

So I guess I didn’t need a supportive knitting friend, I needed a husband who says pretty much everything on his mind, and shamefully has always had a better fashion sense than me.  Seriously, he literally had to stop me from leaving the house yesterday to kindly point out to me that my chunky white sports socks did not go with my dainty cute flats.  One of them had to change.  My idea of a perfect outfit is a really cool handmade sweater that livens up my t-shirt and jeans.

I’m trying to talk myself into writing up the pattern and grading it for sizes before my garden is ready for planting.  I’m not sure I can promise that, but it’s penciled in.  It depends on a few things…

The finish line is in sight for this marathon of a project.  I’m very pleased.

And for reading, I don’t have a picture of my book for the second week in a row.  I apologize for that.  We’ve moved onto A Little Princess and Silje and I are so transfixed by Sara Crewe that we cannot stand putting it down each night.  We’ve both read it before.  I read it when I was a little girl, and Silje read it because it was on the “open” bookshelf and she and I didn’t know that it was going to be on this year’s school list so I “let” her read it for fun last year.  So even though we’ve both read it, I’ve decided a good book is worth reading more than once so we’re reading it during our regular “school” read aloud time.  We’re absolutely loving it.

We love imagining little Sara with her doll Emily who has a custom sewn wardrobe to match her own, and the way that Sara doesn’t act like she’s grand, but cares for the littlest in the boarding school and defends those who feel hopeless in life.  It’s so imaginative and beautiful of a story.  I see so much more the depth of the beauty of the writing as an adult than when I read it years and years ago. 

Surprisingly, David has been asking to stay awake to hear what happens as well.  I thought he’d hate listening in on this book and keep telling him he doesn’t have to sit and listen.  He loves when Sara tells stories about India, though, and the way Miss Minchin is really mean to everyone and although it may just be he wants to stay up late with Silje, I think he’s actually caught up in the story as well.