G. Knerd

The thing about making a sweater up from scratch, as I’m doing with the cARGHdigan project, is that there’s no one to blame but yourself when things go wrong.

For example, when (finally) started on the sleeves, I measured The Blanket Thief‘s wrists.  He wanted them pretty tight, so I added an inch, looked up the gauge I’d calculated earlier, figured out how many stitches to cast on, started knitting like a fiend.  When the cuff was done, I measured his biceps, the length of his arm, did a few more calculations, and kept knitting, increasing as I went.

The whole time, I kept looking at it thinking, “Something doesn’t look right.  It seems a little bit small, right?  It’s not quite right.”  And yet, I soldiered on, not one to let a little adversity sway me from completing a project.

On the other hand, I also didn’t want to let stubbornness force me to finish two entire sleeves before admitting that they weren’t coming out right – and something about having to increase on every other row certainly seemed very wrong.  After about 8 inches of knitting, I finally put it around The Blanket Thief’s arm and asked, “Sweetie, what do you think?”

He grimaced.  “It’s a little tight.”

Crap.  At least I can always trust him to be honest.

As for the sleeves?  I’m going to make them walk the plank, then I’m starting over.  At least I was only halfway up the forearms before I figured it out – that’s progress, right?