I am knitter, hear me roar

Remember how I said I was going to knit a cardigan to go with Baby Girl’s Easter dress? Remember how I said that only a week before Easter? So of course I only finished it two days ago, which is plenty of time to go with her Easter dress…next year.

So yes, it took me a while, mostly because of the unholy trinity of knitting obstacles: lack of time, ADD, and inexperience. Trying to find time to knit was like waiting for the planets to align. And when I did find time, I still had to unravel the tangle of unfamiliar stitches and pattern abbreviations like any other newbie knitter (do what through the back loops?). And even after I had the stitches down pat, I suffered needlessly because I would get all ADD and make the most unbelievable mistakes. You know that Bible verse that says “let not the left hand know what the right is doing?” Yeah, that.

Example: My mother-in-law was visiting a few weeks ago, and I decided to sew together the front and back at the right shoulder. I had already done the left shoulder, and seaming turned out to be super-easy. So no sweat, right? Wrong. So so so wrong.

I carefully aligned the pieces, then executed a flawless three-needle bind-off with my nose about three inches from the sweater. Then after my triumphant finish, I zoomed out and realized that the front piece was backwards. As in, purl side out, stockinette side in. I could have wept.

I grimly undid the shoulder seam and started again. This time I made sure the right side was out. Another flawless three-needle bind-off: w00t. Then I realized the shoulder seam was on the wrong side. Let me explain that more fully: sewing two pieces of knitting together makes a big huge speed bump of a seam. It’s supposed to go on the inside of the project, but mine was on the outside, perched up there on the shoulder like a fat pink woolly worm. A saner woman than I would have torched the whole thing at this point, needles and all. Instead, I undid the seam–AGAIN–and did it one more time. With a rum and coke. This time I got it right, and it was 2 a.m. at that point, so there was mercifully nobody awake to see me taunting a ball of pink alpaca yarn. Okay, so maybe that was a bit much. Probably should have left out the victory dance, anyway.

I didn’t take pictures of that particular screw-up, but I just had to snap a shot or two of my next mistake. I…well, I don’t even know how to justify this. Baby Girl had a cold this past week, so I was a bit distracted with her anyway. As I was rocking her bouncy seat with my big toe, I was attempting to sew up the side and down to the end of the sleeve while simultaneously watching Training Day. I think you know where this is going, and that it is not a good place. That it is, in fact, the crafting equivalent of a dark alley in Compton.

But let me not waste words where a picture will suffice:

See what I did there? That’s the left front sewn onto the back right side. No kidding. The front right side and sleeve are both flapping around uselessly up top. But I had not come so far, only to let that sweater defeat me now. I gritted my teeth and undid the seam, which I was getting quite good at.

By that time the knitting gods must have been done laughing at me, because I had no more mishaps and was completely done the next day. Here it is, in all its glory:

Is it not nifty? It is so nifty. And soft. And the perfect size for Baby Girl. And best of all, completely finished.

Next project: SOCK WARS!!!! What’s that? Why yes, I am a masochist, thanks for asking.