In the Meantime...

As my Sensai and her "little distraction" recuperate and I patiently wait to figure out my sweater sleeves I succumbed to buying more Mille Colori yarn at Lovelyarns and have started on a new scarf. I'm doing a cowl which has me working "in the round" and learning more fun acronyms from the pattern. Ex: "wyif" = with yarn in front.  So far so good. I wonder if I should have used a solid color yarn as all the ravelry.com pictures were solid but I'm sorta digging my crazy self-striping dark and stormy yarn.

One warning! When I was figuring out how to work in the round I watched a video on knittinghelp.com (a most helpful site) and they told me that after I casted on I HAD to make sure that my stitches weren't twisted (that would be a great fucking knitting blog/handle...Twisted Stiches...wish I had thought of that earlier) before I "joined" and starting going around and around. Well of course I didn't listen because I think I'm all that and a bag of Utz Salt & Vinegar chips and now I have permanent twist in the cowl. Nothing earth shattering or unravel worthy...but still.

Wait! There's more?

So I'm just cruising on my sweater and feeling pretty good about it - almost at the end of my pattern instructions when I realize...I still have a whole other page of instructions to go! Damn those pesky sleeves. Do I really need them? What if I decide to make it with cap sleeves instead? And what's the deal with the double-pointed needles...how do those work?

I need my Sensai and a stiff drink.

Sweating the Sweater? Not me!

So when Knitting Sensai uttered the words "OK I think you're ready for a sweater" I have to admit I freaked. I mean really...how do two simple and somewhat sad scarves make you ready for a full fledged sweater?  I mean those things involve like patterns and properly sized holes for appendages and stuff!  When I told some of my other knitting friends that I was making a sweater already I got one of two responses:

1. Ashen-faced fear for my fragile knitting ego which was about to be horribly crushed
2. Ashen-faced fear for my fragile knitting ego which was about to be horribly crushed covered up by very well   meaning but not entirely convincing encouragement that I'd be just fine.

But Sensai kept telling me I'd be fine. In fact she'd make the same pattern with me for moral support.

I bought the pattern, I bought the yarn and needles I made my gauge swatch and dove in with fingers crossed.

And....

So far so good. I've made a few mistakes that Sensai kindly corrected for me. I'm back on metal needles which are highly troublesome for me and my yarn keeps splitting but I'm learning all the fun pattern acronyms and my sweater actually fits!  So next I have to learn how to do decreases and soldier on but I must say that I'm feeling pretty good about diving into the deep end of the pool... the water is just fine ;)

Frankenscarf Lives!

I can't believe I actually finished. I thought the constant undoing of my knitting would be my mental undoing!  Because I started the scarf at home without my Sensai, I was unsure of how to fix my bad stitches and decided (rather intrepidly I think) to soldier on regardless - which basically meant I just kept pulling out all my work and starting over and over and over....and over.  Boyfriend had to finally step in and make me promise not to pull out any more work since apparently I kept cursing up a storm and getting very angry. Personally I thought I was handling it just fine, but he did mention something about being worried I was gonna "hulk out".

So, by the time I got to the end I had dropped a stitch I had to pick up with a crochet needle pretty much up the entire length of the scarf. My crochet skills are not great and it came out rather tight and zipper-like (hence the Frankenstein reference). There are also some random parts: apparently I managed to knit in some holes and seed stitch. So it's a mess. But it's done. And when you wrap it up and "zhuzsh" it properly it looks rather handsome and the yarn is still totally gorgeous so who cares!

p.s. I also realized that I hate metal needles. Slippery little fuckers.