Thursday, August 17, 2006

I must be a quitter....

I have two schools of thought on working on only one project. School of thought #1: work on the damn sweater until it's finished. It will be over soon & then you will be able to rejoice in a huge accomplishment that is a complete sweater. School of thought #2: go ahead & work on another project in between the end of this sweater so I can stop hating it. Last night I was bouncing these 2 choices in my head while gritting my teeth & knitting sleeves. I looked over at Patrick and said "I wonder if I should finish this sweater first or just start on something else". Before I could get the thought completely out of my mouth he says "Finish the sweater. Otherwise you are just a quitter." I stared at him with my jawdropped expression & he looked at me blankly - like he didn't just figuratively slap me in the face. I couldn't believe he said that. I really freaking hate it when he's right.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Bleech. I'm Sick of this Sweater!




I swore I wasn't going to bore my blog readers with constant updated pictures of this sweater over the weeks {months...years....} that it takes me to finish it. I have come to realize though that because I haven't really talked about it that people must think I'm not so much a real knitter as I am a yarn buyer. I promise, I have been knitting on this beauty since July 17th. I started keeping track because I have a knitter friend by the name of Betty that, thanks to a program in her handy dandy palm pilot type thingy can tell you how long it took her to knit something - well, in addition to what yarn she used, the cost of said yarn, the date she purchased it, what book the pattern came from...and probably how many stitches she knitting to make the damn thing! But I digress....

This is the Sonnet sweater from Knitty.com. The sweater really has been easy to knit - the body is knit in one piece & then you do the sleeves and attach them at the end. It's primarily garter stitch with small sections of box stitch thrown in for slight contrast. As you can see I'm about half way through which each sleeve. On the advice of some fellow knitters I decided to knit both sleeves at the same time but I was about half way through sleeve #1. So I started sleeve #2, am going to knit it to the same point, then knit them at the same time. I'm almost there - 14 rows to go to be exact - before I start this method. It's actually genius, I feel silly not having thought of it on my own. That's why we hang out with other knitters!

Now I'm beginning to think that I'm going to hate it by the time I am done knitting it. I wonder if I'll ever enjoy the wearing of it? I'll tell you one thing for sure - I'm going to figure out the answer to that question before starting sweater #2. I had myself pegged as a sweater knitter. I came to that conclusion because I really really do like knitting things for myself & I'm not as much of a scarf person as I imagined. I have tried to knit skinny scarves to wear with tshirts & the like, but it just never seems to work out - they keep me too warm, which is of course their function. So I turned to sweaters because they too will keep you warm, but I do wear sweaters so I may as well just make my own. I have bought enough yarn over the past month or so to make four more sweaters, so either I am going to be a sweater knitter or every person that I know is going to have the same scarf / hat set!


Isn't this yarn delicious???? I love love love love it! It is hand painted yarn by Claudia & I bought it at Yarns Ewenique in Fort Worth. My LSSK (lone star state knitters) group went on a yarn crawl last week and we had a ball! I guess for me it was more of a book crawl because this is the only yarn that I bought. I got it with the intention of gifting it to someone, but now I'm really not so sure. I really hate to make gifts out of yarn that I don't like but I'm growing emotionally attached to my beloved yarn & am having a heck of a time parting with it. Sigh. I'll try.