The Sweater That Will Not End

Saw this sample hanging in a booth at Stitches Midwest last summer. Circled the booth four times before I finally ventured in to touch it. I was starstruck from the moment I laid eyes on it. Perfect project for me — glorious pumpkin orange color, tiny allover baby cables, not too dressy, body-conscious but not too tight. I bought the kit and was more excited about starting this sweater than any project I’ve ever started.

Should have known there would be trouble.

I cast on about two months later (made myself finish a lesser-loved project first). That was October. Here it is just a couple weeks later. The neck and yoke went so quickly.

But then it stalled out. This sweater will. Not. End. I took it on a trip the end of November and really felt like I was making progress. But when I got back, I had to put it on hold for my variety of holiday projects with their absolute deadline. Once Christmas was over, I noticed a hole about six inches back. A hole. I put the (by-now) damn thing away for a few more weeks while I mulled over what to do. I ended up ripping back just those stitches where I thought the problem was. No dice. I ripped back a couple more. I did manage to fix the hole, but when I started working the stitches back up I had way more yarn in each row than I could ever satisfactorily hide.

So rip I did. All six inches of tiny baby cables. And I’ve been reknitting ever since. The first picture was taken on November 3. This was taken this morning:

Still no sleeves, still haven’t finished the body. Sigh. It’s a good thing I started out loving this pattern so very much, else I would not even be able to look at it by now.

Yarn octopus

Yarn octopus

Originally uploaded by lindypepper

There is a cultlike devotion in certain knitting circles to making socks. I really, really want to like knitting socks. I do. I’m a practical girl, and there is just about nothing more practical than a pair of socks. Small, portable, useful, there’s nothing about the *idea* of socks I don’t like.

But up to now, I just haven’t enjoyed it very much. I can never get them to match. Either my gauge is different, or my repeats are off. And I have terrible second sock syndrome. I get to the end of the first sock, admire it, and then sigh and say “Do I really have to do this all over again?”

In my quest to find myself a little sock magic, I bought a copy of Melissa Morgan-Oakes’ “Two at a Time Socks.” Love the concept, and am looking forward to trying out some of the patterns. But I’m feeling fairly inadequate in my first attempts — oh, the tangling! I can’t seem to get a rhythm going and it just feels like loops and needles and yarn everywhere. I’m hanging in there and hoping for the best…