The Chronicles of YARNia

Armed with many skeins of this charcoal heather yarn and a pair of circular knitting needles, I began knitting the sweater for my son. 

I made myself a test gauge to be sure my stitches matched up in size to the pattern before starting, and then worked on the ribbing for the bottom.  At that point, I only had to use knit, purl and cast on stitches,  and those were all familiar to me.

To start the body of the sweater, the pattern said to increase 6 stitches.  Feeling confident that I could manage that, I knit the first row, increasing 6 times evenly as I went.   On the return row of purl knitting, I realized that I did not remember how to increase because I had created 6 holes in the sweater instead.  Rookie mistake.

Ripped out those rows,  looked up "how to increase" in a knitting book and tried a second time.  This time I got it right, and began the body of the sweater.  Again.

About 8 rows in, I came across a random hole.  I think I had mistakenly done a "yarn over".  Ripped out about 4 rows and started up again.  After a few nights work, I had about 8 inches of the back done.

I laid it out on top of a sweater that my son already owned and that fit him well.  It was easy to see that my knitted sweater was going to be too small.  Another rookie mistake.  I should have compared my work to the storebought sweater about 4 inches sooner and saved myself a lot of time.   I had to start over.  Again.

I went back an looked through the pattern book I had bought, ignoring the crazy eyes and the sullen stares of the models and found a nice crewneck sweater that looked more roomy, then convinced my son that v-necks were overrated anyway. 
Then came the hard part, ripping out everything I had done so far:

Going....

Going...

Gone.....

Before I could start over, I had to deal with this...

a mountain of yarn sitting there on the table. 

 I lamented to my knitting expert sister about losing the convenience of a pull-skein, where your skein stays in one place while you pull yarn from the center.  She showed me how you can wrap a ball of yarn and make your own pull skein, a technique I will graciously share with you:

Start wrapping the yarn around your fingers, making sure to leave a long tail hanging out from the center:

Continue winding your yarn into a ball, always making sure the tail end is hanging free:

When you are finished, you will have a nice, tidy ball of yarn with a pullstring from the center:

Now I was ready to start the sweater project all over again, but not without a nice, consoling cup of tea and a good night's sleep first.

Stay tuned....

The journey begins

As I mentioned in my previous post,  in a moment of maternal weakness, I agreed to knit my son a sweater.   This would be no small project, seeing as this son of mine is 6 feet tall.

Off we went to the nearest craft store hoping to find a pattern for a man's sweater, in particular, a V-neck pullover.  It seemed like a classic style that should be easy to find.  Unfortunately, we were both wrong.  It was actually quite hard to find patterns for men.  Page after page, in booklet after booklet, we found beautiful patterns for pretty, feminine sweaters and accessories,  sweet baby items,  lots and lots of sock patterns, but not one single pattern for a man's V-neck sweater.

Finally, I searched out the craft book section, and reluctantly picked up this book:

I was reluctant because I did not want to pay $20 for a whole book of patterns when all I wanted to knit was just one sweater.   But also, I was put off by the scowling face of the guy on the book cover.  If  the sinister looking coverboy was any indication, how could I expect to find a sweater in this book that would appeal to my son?   Expecting the worst, but with no other alternative,  I began flipping through the pages. 

On the inside cover was this guy staring back at me:

I could not imagine wanting to make any sweater that would also appeal to this crazy-eyed, disheveled lost boy. 

I kept searching. 

The next picture I saw was this guy:

He seemed to be daring me to ask about that earring in his ear. 

There was another sweater modeled by the coverboy-with-attitude:

Is that the only face he knows how to make?

Perhaps he was annoyed because his overachiever girlfriend made his scarf

way too long:

This next model looked less menacing, but did I really want to spend time and effort to make such a droopy, mis-shapen, boring cardigan as this?

Who was the stylist for this photoshoot anyway? Looks like this guy just rolled out of bed.

Finally, a model who was more cutie pie than smarty pants:

Cute smile, but we weren't looking for a cardigan.

And then this pic of somebody's lovable, teddy bear grandpa:

I bet he keeps Werther's original caramels in that pocket.

At long last,  I came to this photo of a camera shy computer geek  modeling a perfectly normal looking V-neck pullover.

My son and I both agreed it would make a fine sweater, and we found some nice
charcoal gray heather yarn to make it with.

I guess this book was designed  to appeal to the new breed of younger, edgier, way-hipper-than-me knitters.  Stepping away from my comfort zone to attack a sweater project is as close to the edge as I want to get.