Pink and Fluffy

I saw this sweater pattern in Vogue Knitting Fall 2006, and fell in love with the luscious gigantic cabled collar (it’s called Cable Trim Pullover). Doesn’t it just look like you could sink yourself into its yummy squishiness? There was also a curiosity factor, in that I’ve done some small cables, but never a gigantic Cable 20. So I started to hunt up yarn and came up with AlpacaWare Superfine Alpaca in light pink, cheap on eBay.

I knit the pieces of the sweater many months ago. I’ve lost track how long. Probably more than a year ago, truth be told. I was very very careful in my preparation. I swatched (i.e. made a test square), in the totally proper way with the recommended number of stitches, plus a non-rolling border. Then washed and shaped and dried the swatch before measuring and adjusting needles sizes at least three or four times. I was good, and for me, incredibly patient in the preparation. I ended up going up several needle sizes to get the correct gauge (essential when one wants to produce a sweater that approximates the desired size), but I *did* get the correct gauge.

Then I knit the thing.

It took me a few weeks, as I recall, and then the pieces sat around the house, moved from surface to surface, stuffed into a bag, then into a closet. The knitting was done. Completed. Finito. I just had to seam together these pieces into the yummy sweater. But the sweater I had such a fatuous crush on had lost it’s allure. I was already worried then that it had come out a bit too small. The yarn is really rather fussy and delicate, not wanting to be tugged or pulled or pushed too much this way or that. And I really dreaded trying to set in those sleeves without doing some wacky stretchy damage to the whole thing.

A couple of weeks ago, in a fit of “Let’s finish some damn knitting already!” I pulled out the pieces and seamed them all together. To be sure, my sleeve joins are really shoddy. But I thought maybe some of that would relax out in the steaming and blocking.

All seamed, I put it on. Hm. WAY too short. Which was weird, because I measured carefully and, as I recall, added a few extra rows in the middle to make it a bit longer than the pattern called for.

Deep breath. I decided I could fix that by—those of you who might be slightly squeamish about knitting might want to look the other way—cutting off the bottom band, picking up the stitches left raw, and knitting some more bottom onto that thing. I have to say that the idea of cutting the yarn, with the inherent risk of the whole thing, all that work, being reduced back into a wad of string, really did make me feel queasy. But I braced myself and convinced myself that it would be a good adventure.

The bravest knitters would cut first and ask questions and pick up stitches later, but this being my first foray into knittacide, I decided to place a lifeline—two actually—before I cut. That’s the bluey/yellowy/greeny stripe. I put two so that I could save the ribbing and reattach it when the sweater was long enough. As it turned out, I decided to make a bottom hem rather than a ribbed hem and tossed the ribbing into the stash bucket.

Knit knit knit knit.

I could have just folded over and SEWN down the knitting to make the bottom hem, but the yarn fumes went to my head and I decided I’d kitchener the hem in place, which was stupid. It took FOREVER and required me to pick up stitches along the place where the them would join so that I didn’t twist it and make it weird. Ahem. I still twisted it and made it weird. But you can’t tell now unless you turn it inside out and look really closely and are generally picky and rude. Shame on you.

Finished (finally), I tried it on again. Gr. Still TOO SHORT.

Then I put on my knitting thinking cap. This was really weird, because I measured the sweater, measured myself, measured the length from armpit to hem on a top with a flattering length, and these numbers all matched up. When the sweater was on the table. When the sweater went on me….. no more matchy.

I decided to measure the sweater the other way. Turns out it’s a teensy bit smaller than me. Like more than four inches around less than me. Some sweaters can support that degree of negative ease. Not this one and not on me. When the sweater stretched out to cover my circumference, the yarn had to come from somewhere: the length. Mystery solved.

There’s really no way I can make this pretty little sweater fit me, so, in honor of Sweater Day, I am offering it up, to anyone who would love it or who knows someone who would love it. Price negotiable.

Here are the specs: Chest 31” Waist 27” Hip 32” Neck-to-hem 21.5” Armpit-to-cuff 18”

I will mail the sweater, complete with a handful of spare yarn (in case of catastrophe or the desire to reconnect the sleeves in a less shoddy manner).

I don’t even like pink. ;)