Shift in Attitude...

I've been delaying the inevitable. I've gotten all my other pressing obligatory knitting done except for a couple sweaters I need to get going on. I've decided that the 1st sweater I've got to get done is for my Grandmother. She loved the sweaters I knit my bother and sister for Christmas but she would never ask me to knit her one. I just knew that she would love one though. So I took her measurements and asked her what kind of sweater she would like. Some of the things she requested were simple enough. 

-Cardigan

-Dark Grey

-Buttons

-Lightweight sweater

But trying to find a pattern that I liked that matched up with her minimal requirements was more difficult. I'm very particular in what kind of sweaters I knit. No one likes to be constantly complaining about how much we hate a particular project we're working on. I've been there more than once. I only like to knit sweaters that are in 'one piece' or in other words 'raglan'. Seaming down right pisses me off. I'm totally OK if other people like to seam their sweaters together but I just don't have the required patience to do it. Plus it looks like crap when I do it. Mostly because of the lack of patience I have.

So I was surprised that during my search I was able to find 1 pattern that kind of met the requirements I set. Etching by Linda Wilgus. Although it wasn't spot on, it was enough for me to order the yarn. Which in it's self was re-don-cu-lous. I went to Web's and ordered some Cascade Sport Superwash 220. I assumed that since it was 220 it would have 220 yards like the worsted 220. Well when it was delivered a couple weeks later, I read the ball band and was surprised that it said 136 yards. It prompted ALOT of curse words. ALOT!! It clearly says on the page the yardage but I assumed because it was 220 yarn it was going to have 220 yards. 

Frick.

Now I had to order more yarn. So I ordered more yarn. I waited a couple more weeks for it to come in. Then when it arrived I casted on.

I used Judy's magic cast on because I'm doing some revisions to the pattern. I'm going to be adding a shawl collar, a thicker button band and long sleeves. So I reserved the shawl collar live stitches on a spare cable from my Knit Picks Interchangeable set and started knitting on the Raglan. 

After a couple of inches I was starting to get frustrated. Mostly because it doesn't look like I'm making any progress, since it's sport weight yarn and I have to increase the raglan to 404 stitches. This is going to take a while. I put the sweater down for a couple days and thought about it. 

I did NOT want this to be a project that I was going to hate working on. It's suppose to be a loving gift to my grandmother and I didn't want any negativity I'm feeling to leech into this gift that is suppose to be made with love. So I decided that while I'm knitting this every time I'm getting irritable with the lack of progress I'm going to think of fond memories with my grandmother. So far it's working and I'm almost done the raglan increases, which in itself is the worst part. To me anyways. I find once I get done the raglan increases and separate the sleeves that the rest of the sweater seems to fly by faster. 

I'm sure that this sweater is going to take a while to finish. I've got a couple other projects on the needles as well to break up all the stockinette that's in this sweater. Plus since the yarn is so dark I've just been knitting on it during the day in the natural light. Then in the evening I'm either working on my Papaya Cancan or my BFF socks. 

Happy Knitting :-)