First Sweater

Here it is:



This is the Wicked, finished, blocked and modeled. This is my first sweater, started in January and finished in August. Despite the pooling, I am very proud.

In one of my recent posts one of my friends commented that the trouble I had had with Wicked has convinced her to never start knitting. Whenever I hear someone say something like that I have two very strong gut reactions. One is, 'More yarn for me!'. The other is, 'How sad. You don't know what you're missing.'.

Yes, this sweater took forever and yes, I had to rip it back a lot and try things again. It was a straightforward pattern, but it wasn't easy for me. I struggled, it's true. But now look what I have: I have a garment made with my own hands to fit no one else but me. I have a sweater made from 100% wool, which is tougher and tougher to find these days. My sweater is warm and soft, thicker than anything store-bought, and it clings to me where I want it to. The sweater's boat-neck is nice and wide, and it sits on the edges of my shoulders just the way I hoped it would. The sleeves are comfy and over-long, which is my favorite way for sleeves to be and which I can almost never find in a store-bought sweater. Roll your eyes if you will, but wearing this sweater feels like wearing a warm hug. It feels just right.

And you know what? My next sweater will probably be a lot easier and will go a lot quicker. There is a learning curve for these sorts of things. Just look at my first pair of socks, for example: they took forever (May 2006-January 2007) and they came out weird and too big and at first I thought I would probably never knit another pair of socks again because they were such a pain. But now I knit socks all the time, they're not that hard and they don't take too long and THEY'RE AWESOME! And maybe it'll be like that with sweaters too: the first one takes a while but I learn, and it gets better.

So. I also wanted to share that last night another friend had a New Kitten Party to honor her new kitty. It was of course lots of fun and there was dancing and wine and snacks... and these:



These are Cat Poop Cupcakes. I made them firstly to honor the new little cat but also because I promised I would and because they crack me up. They were, you can imagine, a big hit. The original version is over here.

Wicked Finish

I'm done. Last night I bound off on the Wicked sweater and I am finally, finally satisfied enough to call it done, and to say that I knit the best first sweater I could. I will weave in the ends, block it, and post pictures once that's done. I may still overdye it with black in the future, but that's a different adventure. For right now, the sweater is done.

Ghosts and Gurus

First, I must show you the very cute little ghost-in-a-tin that I received from the lovely Sara in the Monster Living in a Tin swap I was in. He's a bookworm ghost, and he's very cool.



Alright, so remember when I said that the Wicked is my guru? Well, the problem with gurus is that they test you. Observe:



Looks like the sweater's pretty much done, right? Just a few ends to weave in and then... But wait....
What's this?



It's the hem. It looks like it's...



Why, yes. It's rolling. It's goddamn rolling! The seed stitch hem called for in the pattern is all F'ed up. So I'm going to, say it with me, rip it back and knit it again. How many times have I ripped back on this sweater? I've lost count. When I reknit it I'm going to do it in the crossover ribbing of the neckline and cuffs on a size larger needle. This means that almost nothing of the written pattern has worked out for me. I have changed almost every detail on the pattern. But it still looks like a Wicked, doesn't it?

Also, look at that pooling! Geez! Why why why didn't I choose a solid color? Blech. So, should I leave it the color it is, or should I try to overdye it with something darker? Any thoughts? Vote now!

Vengeance Deferred and Domestic Interests

So my plan had been to make a vengeful blog post to judgementally lay the smack down on a former Bookman's manager of mine (let's call her... mmm.... Kaia) who apparently got her BA by having her husband write all her damn papers for her. Yes folks, that had been my plan, and it was going to be a long blog post complete with full names and seething rage. But then I got teh intestinal flu all weekend long and I was shown the humility of all mortal flesh and my plans changed.

So.

Now I'd like to talk to you about sweaters and other domestic things. I'd like to talk about my Wicked sweater, in particular. When last you saw my Wicked I had decided to rip it back to the shoulder increases because it was too big. And I did that. And I knit it some more, until I got to a point where I decided that this time around the damn thing was a wee bit tight. So at that point I balled it up in a bag somewhere and focused on packing and moving. Then last week I did what I knew I had to and ripped it back again.

I ripped it all the way back.

I knew that there were things about this sweater I would change from the very beginning, and I decided that if I was going to spend this much time and energy on the damn thing (and let's not forget money; good yarn is es'pensive) then I might as well do it my way from the beginning.

I cast on more stitches than even the largest size called for because I like a wide neck. And then I made the neckband itself narrower so as to be a little comelier. Now I've been working diligently on those shoulder increases, but this time I don't feel strained or impatient. This time I think that perhaps the Wicked and I are reaching an understanding. We are making friends. Last night I tried on what I had and at that point it was still less of a sweater and more of a yoke, I suppose, but I could see that we were headed in the right direction. I am reaching a sort of first-sweater-zen, and the Wicked is my guru.

Also this weekend we had our new mattress and shelves delivered from Ikea. The mattress? King-sized! And after over a month on a full-sized camping air mattress it feels like the height of luxury. Mostly I just want to writhe around on it and make snow angels in the sheets because IT IS THAT BIG! And folks, sometimes bigger is better.

And the shelves? Huge also. They are taller than I am and wider than my wingspan. They look great and they totally dominate our living room, but you know what? Not. Enough. We unpacked all our books yesterday, and most of my books hadn't been unpacked in a year. Now, when we bought the shelves I knew we'd have to double-stack some of our books, because I'm a pessimist and I just knew the shelves wouldn't be big enough. But apparently I'm not enough of a pessimist, because I didn't think that we'd have to double-stack our books on every shelf just to fit them all but that is indeed what we did. We could've bought two of these shelving units and filled them both up. Easily.

Our books outnumber us. They definitely out-weigh us and they might just out-mass us as well. God help us if they ever revolt.

No Joy in Sweaterville

After some soul searching, and perusing the pictures of other people's finished Wicked sweaters on Ravelry, I have come to the conclusion that my sweater is just too damn big. I will be ripping it back to those shoulder increases and re-knitting it from there. Sigh.

Stoopit sweater.

Progress in Sweaterville

There has been some progress in Sweaterville. I am speaking of that sweater I began back in January, my very first sweater ever, that took forever with the shoulder increases and where I thought I was going to run out of yarn. That sweater. Well, it's coming along. I'm not crazy about the way the yarn is knitting up, and it's just a bit too big on me, and I think I should've done fewer of those shoulder increases because the neckline doesn't fall where I'd like it to. Ahem.

Here's the sweater from over a month ago:



And here's the sweater where it stands today:



Sexy, no? Bleah! But it'll look better when it's done. I hope. And if it doesn't, well, it's my very first sweater and it's allowed to be a little sucky. I can always just wear it at home. I already know a few things I'll do differently if I knit the pattern again.

I also went out and bought the yarn for my next sweater, which I'm thinking will be a sort of cropped cardigan. I love the color of this yarn, although it will look awful with my coloring. Oh well. Acid green cardigan, you're next!



And let's not forget that there's also been some progress in Sock Town:



This is an upside-down version of the Monkey pattern done in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in the Tropical Storm colorway. Upside-down Blue Monkey.

Also, next month Nico and I are moving to Olympia (I will still commute to work every day). Also we're engaged. Hot cha!