Sometimes knitting makes we want to cry.

For whatever reason I became completely obsessed with making this Vesper sweater:

Flickr Photo used with permission of pipibird

I bought this Linen Isle on clearance with absolutely no idea what I was going to do with it.

This yarn/pattern combination kept haunting me so I decided to go for it. I printed out the pattern, got out my yarn & needles, & knit a swatch. So far so good. Then I started reading the pattern. Cast on 432 stitches. Wow. And one Ravelry user had done some mods that I wanted to incorporate which called for that to be a provisional cast on. Wow. I almost just put the whole thing down & said forget it right there. But you know, I'm supposed to be pushing myself to learn new things this year, so I wanted to just go for it. I found a video at the Knitting at Knoon website & decided that was the easiest way for me. I sat through a 2 hour movie and STILL hadn't cast on all of those stitches. I just went with it until it was over & you know, it wasn't all that bad. This is definitely an easier method than other things I have tried. Now the issue is that I had 432 stitches on my needles & other than some short rows, I needed to knit all 432 of those stitches for quite while. So I did. And then I realized that I made a ridiculous stupid mistake - I hadn't done my short rows long enough & it wasn't going to be right. I re-read the pattern shaking my head wondering how in the world I didn't see the obvious instructions on that piece of paper!

There are 2 schools of thought on making a knitting project. Some people think you should read through each detail of the pattern & know what you are doing. Some people think you should never read ahead because it will just confuse you & you have to trust the process. I had read nothing but great things about how clever this pattern was so when I read ahead a little & it made no sense, I didn't trust myself. I told myself to just trust the process & when I got to the next part it would make sense. You know what? I'm a pretty smart cookie & I should have known. I should have trusted my gut when it looked like something was wrong. No, the pattern wasn't wrong, but the next step didn't match up with my fabric. Because I SCREWED UP THE KNITTING PART. One day I'm going to believe that I do kinda know what I'm doing & not continue down the path that leads to frogging all of my work!

I ripped back 10 inches of knitting 432 stitches & started over. Now I'm about 3 inches from being done with the body, I need to add a little length to the sleeves, and then knit the pleats around the neckline. I am really really hoping to have this finished so I can wear it to Disneyworld when I go on April 5th. I'd love to have a picture with Mickey and/or Minnie wearing something I knitted! How cool would that be?

Stay tuned.