It’s grey and damp here, which is pretty much perfect weather for keeping your head down and knitting. Oh hang on, who am I trying to kid? Any weather is just perfect for knitting in my book. This may be the only advantage of being the sort of person who feels cold year-round.
With sadness about the fatal fire at work, I confess that I’ve been craving mindless stitchery as a wee break from that crazy-but-monstrous crochet project. I needed to switch my brain off and work someone else’s pattern. So I returned – not for the first time – to my jumper-of-doom. This is a project that I started well over two years ago, just before beginning this blog. But having billed the blog as knitting and crochet for the home, all work on making clothes was paused. The poor jumper has languished in a corner of my bedroom for most of the time since then. In my defence, I should point out that it’s a s-l-o-w knit, worked in yarn thin enough for sock-knitting, and using waffle stitch. If you’ve not yet had the pleasure of waffle stitch, let’s just say that there’s a lot of flicking back and forth between knits and purls. It’s slow. Very slow.
I shouldn’t be mean about this jumper (transl. for non-UK: ‘sweater’). It’s a brilliant free pattern called Thermal. I chose it because all those yarny blobs are supposed to trap insulating air against your skin, which sounds very appealing in this chilly house. (Ice on the inside of windows has been known, although not during the ridiculously mild winter that we’re currently experiencing.)
The last time I showed you this jumper, I was labouring on its sleeves in an Escher-like parody:-
But now, I’m making some serious progress. It’s come even further since this photo was taken:-
This is a lesson in how not to make a jumper. As the knitting sat neglected, I got involved with other projects, and borrowed needles and stitch markers from this piece. A wise knitter, one with the forethought to realize that I might not be back on the job any time soon, would have made a note of the needle sizes when I removed them. But I am not a wise knitter. Let’s just call the wildly fluctuating gauge a design feature and move on, OK? Also, the first half was worked with wooden KnitPro Symfonies and the second half using carbon fibre KnitPro Karbonz: my rap sheet with the Knitting Police is starting to look bad.
I’ve written before about how, despite attentive swatching, this jumper was coming out way too baggy. It’s supposed to have negative ease, not hang like a curtain. Again, a wise knitter would merely have sighed, unravelled several tens of thousands of stitches, and started anew with unfailing dignity and patience, possibly comforting themselves with a cup of tea along the way. Pah, my dignity is lost somewhere in the bottom of my knitting bag amongst the scraps of yarn and the tape-measures. So I poured some wine and went for the scissors. And then I conducted some slightly manic sewing. I know it’s bad bloggy form to recycle content, but here’s a reminder of the carnage at the crime scene:-
Anyway, I seem to have got away with this cut-and-shut job. Let’s just call the bulky seam down my left side extra insulation, OK?
It’s nearly done. In a few days’ time, I shall be warm. Especially down the left side of my body. And I’m feeling sufficiently restored to get back to the crochet design craziness. Thank you for your patience.
thank you for posting. My socks are pretty similar, so I’m trying to get more done before school starts…while trying to remember what all this school stuff is supposed to be like…I’m making progress at a snail’s pace(on the school stuff, not the socks), but we’ll get there, right?
🙂 Happy New Year Twisted!
Knitting is wonderfully soothing. You’ve got the perfect hobby at your fingertips.
I love your sense of humour, especially in light of such tragic circumstances. The jumper is beautiful. Congratulations for picking it back up again and getting it done.
Got a suggestion for you, I got rid of all my stitch holders many years ago. I use 1/4″ ribbon threaded through the stitches [or 1/8th” for sock yarn], which can be tied off securely, won’t stick into either you, or portions of the sweater you don’t want to have poked, and is flexible. I use ribbon, rather than yarn, because when you pick up the stitches again, the needle will just slide over it.
By the way, there are no knitting police except for the ones in your own head! Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you and yours, may 2016 be kind to you all and bring you a sense of peace.
I agree that the knitting police are only a fiction of our imagination but I guess that many of us experience them and that has the ability to make them seem real!
Us creative types expect to tackle anything and for it to turn out perfectly every time but the truth is we’re too hard on ourselves and we could be far more generous with our praise of our own efforts. I’m sure we’re all far more encouraging to others than we are to ourselves!
Well done you for revisiting a project that you put aside and well done you for having the determination to finish it. I look forward to hearing about how warm it’s keeping you and maybe you’ll treat us to a picture of you wearing it, with a proud smile on your face. xox
I’m very happy to hear about your projects for the inhabitants of your house as well.
You know Escher – great! I love the texture and colour. Clever idea with the scissors. I am soon to start a jumper but it’s supposed to be baggy. Previous attemps have been a bit tight rather than too loose.Harder to fix! Wish me luck!
I remember well the Escher-like photo! (goodness knows how you took it!!) Good to see you’ll soon be warm – especially down your left side! 😉
happy new year! I’m looking forward to the reveal of the monster project in the coming … months??? 2016 for sure.
If you stopped mentioning the HUGE crochet project we would all forget about it. Such are our modern, fast paced, lives, we continually rely on social media to jog our memories and keep us moving forwards and “on track” (whatever that is). I had completely forgotten about this jumper. I would have stayed “forgotten” if you hadn’t social media jogged my memory. I would have worn the jumper big, said I had lost TONNES of weight and basked in all the adoration. As soon as I hit “enter” on this comment I will forget everything I just said 😉
Not sure how one does this – did you cut out a strip and then sew the rest together with a million stitches with thread to keep it from unraveling? I was given a moebius scarf and am hoping there is a way to change it to a regular scarf… Thank you.
Thanks for your comment. How to do it properly is explained here . But yes, I did engage in a certain amount of overzealous and frenzied stitching. If your scarf is pure wool, it should be possible, although you’ll need some way to hide/disguise the cut/sewn ends. (Has to be pure wool so that the fabric felts a little to prevent unravelling. Sometimes brave souls steek without even adding reinforcing stitches if they’re using wool that felts very easily.) Good luck!
Thanks – I have read that now. Wow, you have Grannie’s sewing machine? I wish I had my Grandmother’s Singer. As it is, I have mine which is decades old, but looks “modern,” aka not black, no goldish lettering.