Famous Last Words

In my previous blog the last words were: “Hey, no biggie”.

Spoken way too cockily methinks. The collar is beautiful and was a simple enjoyable knit while watching the 1938 version of Holiday with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. However, then the sleeves were tackled and no movie is going to make this fun.

Now I remember why vests are my preferred larger project. Sleeves are equivalent to another back or front. Sleeves should be the same. When sleeves are knit I make them one at a time so they are similar but not equal.

Cathy showed me how to do two sleeves, both at once, with one long 40” circ magic loop. I forgot that I do not like that method. I forgot that I have tried socks that way and did not finish them.

The stitches were put on correctly. The knitting was started and almost immediately the great feeling I had from this sweater morphed into annoyance. I don’t like pulling cords out here and there. I don’t like yarns from two balls twisting up. I think I don’t like doing two sleeves at once either. Did I say that before?  Certainly I have always given up when trying to do 2 socks at the same time. I get bogged down. The only way even one sock gets done nowadays is with 2 circs.

So after several rows were accompanied by cursing and the “heirloom in waiting” was nearly thrown across the room, I switched to two circs. I am getting further with two circs but now there are 4 ends to get tangled with two strings coming out of two balls. I am not having a good time. On top of that I just counted and the 2 sleeves are at different totals, probably because it all confuses me so much. So much for equality.  

I just promised myself that once the decreases are done (again) I will go back to doing one sleeve at a time and maybe get the joy back from this sweater. What’s the sense of having potentially perfectly matching sleeves if the process is a nightmare?


Periodically it all makes sense and then somewhere along I lose that and the mess happens. I also just realized that when I switched from one circ to two, the same starting point was retained. “So?” you say. Well the BOR is now in the middle. I stop for a break and have to puzzle my way back to the start of the rounds. If I had used 2 circs to begin with I would be happier as the needles would have been threaded the same way as for socks. Life is so interesting.