The last time I posted it was mid December and much has happened during the intervening weeks. Our planned trip to Knoxville was cancelled. My step-daughter and her family decided to come up here at the last minute so we had a lovely Christmas with my three-year old grandson. Much time was spent playing, painting, baking holiday cookies and decorating them, and one morning we were even able to go out and catch snowflakes on our tongues.
Knitting progress was shelved in the general hubub and the rush to make a magical Christmas at home on three days notice; but then Christmas is all about magic and it doesn't take a lot, just creativity and love.
The family is gone now, and I have settled down to the Elaine Striped pullover and one of the worst colds I have had in many a year. I worked on the sleeve today, got up to the shaping at the top and decided to sew up the sweater and make sure my lengths were correct before proceeding.
At this point I finally had to face facts and deal with the uncomfortable little gremlin that has been sitting on my shoulder and nagging me about this sweater for some time now and admit that he was right all along, and in fact the reason I have been making slow progress is due to the fact that I was never able to completely convince myself that all was well.
The simple truth is that the armholes are just too long. When the sweater is sewn up the armhole opening is halfway between my bust and my waist, considerably low. And there is no way the sleeve cap, as written will fill the space. In fact, I don't even want the sleeve cap to fill the space as the sweater would be cumbersome and unwearable.
So I ripped the sleeve back to before the cap shaping and then I started ripping back the sweater. I have finished ripping the back, although I sill have the side seams sewn together at this point. Next I will rip back the fronts.
Then I need to add about 4 inches to the sides before the armhole shaping and continue the neckline and shoulder shaping as before. The total length of the sweater is perfect, the armhole depth is the only issue. And I will be happy to continue this knowing it will fit. In fact it may even move along a little more quickly.
It is a suitable end to the year, and although ripping a sweater sounds like a sad way to end a year and begin another, it is actually quite positive since I am no longer fooling myself, wasting my time pursuing dreams instead of reality. Not that dreams aren't worth pursuing, just that they need to have some foundation.
I hope to close out this year by unraveling this sweater, hopefully finishing long before midnight, at which point I shall top off the evening with a little green glass of Nyquil rather than the pink champagne residing in my icebox. The dawn of a new day and a new year is time enough to begin again.
Sad, but good. It's a sweater worth fixing. It'll look great once it's done.
Posted by: Luni | Sunday, January 03, 2010 at 11:27 AM
oh Mardel, how disappointing and yet how like you to turn the prism to view the event from a positive angle.
Happy new year my friend. Your Christmas sounds magical. I'm so happy that Miriam and family were able to make it.
Posted by: Marji | Friday, January 01, 2010 at 10:55 PM
I'm so impressed! If I got to the stage where I realized a sweater's sleeves weren't going to work without major ripping, thinking, and re-knitting, I would generally let it languish in a basket somewhere for many, many months, and then either unravel the whole thing and put the yarn back into stash -- OR (and I admit this has happened IRL) bag up the whole project and shift it along to Goodwill where perhaps someone else will be happy to unravel and get some decent yarn.
With your perseverance and cleverness, you truly do deserve to have a very Happy New Year, and I'm happy to wish you one. I've enjoyed your blog posts so much over the past year and hope for many more in 2010.
Posted by: materfamilias | Friday, January 01, 2010 at 02:02 PM