It all started so innocently.
I had a leftover cake of yarn sitting on my desk. About 300 yards of Miss Babs Yowza. Glorious beautiful golden sand colored yarn leftover from my Wrightsville Beach Sweater (haha a story for another day) and I couldn't stand it. The yarn is too pretty not use. It's smooshy, soft, superwash - how do you not use that??
But 300 yards. I didn't want a hat. I have tons of scarf yarn saved up for the boys. What to do? I hit up Ravelry and found an adorable pattern. A Debbie Bliss (this name is now a curse word in my vernacular) baby cardi, knit all in one piece, CUTE. And perfect for my brother's new little baby. According to Debbie Bliss the 9-12 size (which seemed appropriate) needed 3 balls (300 yards) of Cashmerino Aran. I have some Cashmerino Aran leftovers and I swatched it, swatched the Yowza and decided it should be fine. The knit was a little looser, but still pretty and wearable (and it's for a BABYfor god's sake) and they live in Southern California anyway. Who needs a tight knit sweater in Burbank?
I knit my gauge swatch initially on 6's. I am always too loose for the pattern gauge. I washed and blocked my swatch - I wanted this to be perfect for my niece. While I was waiting for the swatch to dry, I texted my brother.
"What size does Maddy G wear now?"
"6-9"
Hmmmmm. I thought about it. 9-12 would be ok, but wouldn't it better to do 12-18? Big is always better when one is talking about baby clothes, right? I decided at that moment to make the 12-18 instead. I checked my swatch and almost fainted. My gauge was too tight. It actually took me a good 10 minutes to figure this out since this has NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE and I kept trying to figure out why I had too many stitches per inch, rather than too few. After coming to my senses and realizing that, for the first time in my life, I might actually be about to knit a pattern on the needles suggested, I swatched on 8's, washed and blocked again, and started knitting a baby hat to send off with the sweater when done.
My second swatch was good. I cast on for the 12-18 month size and knit away. I FLEW through that sweater all the way to the second front when I realized... I was almost out of yarn. This is something else that NEVER HAPPENS TO ME. I never run out of yarn. Never. I always have too much. Always. Really. I started to sweat - but I kept knitting. "It's ok," I thought to myself, "as long as I finish the front, I can find something else to knit the edging in".
I kept going. It kept looking less likely I was going to make it to the end. I weighed one front, as best i could, then weighed the other and what I had left, and gave up. "What the hell??" I thought to myself. Then it hit me. THE 12-18 SIZE TAKES MORE YARN. I would like to say I'm bad at math. Or not a careful reader. Or not a compulsive swatcher. But none of those things are true. I was apparently just completely, ridiculously, oblivious.
I frogged.
I rewound my yarn, and cast on again, this time for the 9-12. I knew it would be fine, this time, after all - hadn't I nearly finished the 12-18?? I knit furiously and in no time at all was up to the second front. Bizarrely, I looked at my yarn and saw it disappearing. "I know it will be fine", I told myself, "I know it". I knit until I was out of yarn - about an inch from the end of the front. I looked for more yarn. Anything that might match. Nothing. Finally, after upending my stash, I decided that I would use some leftover tosh worsted. Sure it was purple. Sure it wasn't superwash. Sure this is a baby sweater. But there was NO WAY I wasn't going to finish this now, and if tosh worsted is all I had that would work, then tosh worsted it was going to be.
I knit to the end in tosh worsted. It looked ridiculous. Instead of looking cute and color blocked, it just looked like I had run out of yarn. So I ripped back the first front to an inch from the end and reknit the last inch in tosh worsted. At least they matched, and I figured once the edging was on, they'd probably look fine. I mean, it would just blend with the edging right?
Finally. I was ready to pick up stitches for the ribbing. I looked at my directions, started picking up, and suddenly they made no sense. Debbie wanted me to "pick up 11 stitches along the straight edge" and where I was picking up, there existed no straight edge bearing any relation to 11 stitches. I checked and rechecked. I had started at the right spot. My row gauge was very close to the pattern gauge. Again my brain screamed "What is GOING ON??". I decided to fold the sweater over and see how it would look seamed, and just pick up stitches at my own pace. I folded - and nearly fainted. I had KNIT THE RIGHT FRONT TWICE.
That's right. My sweet little sweater had a right front on the left side. Do not ask me how I missed this. Do not ask me if I didn't notice that the pattern directions seemed funny. So funny that I figured bad editing had resulted in the instructions being printed BACKWARDS when I was knitting. That's right. As I was knitting along, on my second right front, I came to a row where Debbie clearly told my to decrease at the "wrong" end. So I just ignored her instructions, and decreased at the other end, where I knew the decrease should be. Excellent.
So I frogged the second front. I reknit it and when I got to the end I had too much yarn. I had yarn left over. In fact, I had much less purple on that side now. I looked at the sweater. Looked at the yarn. My brain, dangerously close to just melting at this point, tried to process how this could be. Then I looked over and saw my size 8 needles, lying on the couch. Not in my hand. Not in my knitting. On. The. Couch. Apparently, having switched to 7's for the ribbing, I just kept them in hand when I furiously reknit the second front. I gave up. "Screw it", I thought, "it's a freaking baby sweater. I am NOT reknitting it AGAIN". I folded it over and the edges matched well enough, so I set out to pick up and knit the ribbing. That went off surprisingly well, considering all the drama so far.
When I finished, I realized, in horror, that I didn't have any "sand" colored yarn to seam with. I couldn't seam it with purple, I just couldn't. It would have looked awful. As I walked into my yarn closet to try to find something nondescript to seam with, I saw them. My swatches. My TWO swatches, which between them, certainly had enough yarn to have finished the fronts, if not knit the edging too. I almost stabbed myself in the eye with my size 8 at that point, but instead just calmly picked up the swatches, unraveled one, and seamed the sweater. Washed and blocked, and finally done, it was cute.
Worth it? I have no idea. Although I am sure there are some knitting life lessons in there for me somewhere. Now, if I can ever finish the baby hat, maybe I'll send the sweater before 9-12 is too small.
