Monday, June 9, 2008

from tragedy to triumph (hopefully)

I have only successfully knit something for Matthew once. The "men's cashmere scarf" from lmkg, which I knit in a now discontinued yarn from knitpicks called panache, which was an alpaca, cashmere, silk blend. It's beautiful, he likes it, he wears it, but alas it is the only one.
This is not to say I haven't tried. There was the first hat I knit him, which just didn't work. He wore it a few times, but it was too short, and when I tried to lengthen it it looked weird. It has been retired to a bag, inside a box, in the back of a cupboard. Then there was the second hat, the earflap hat from lmkg. I swear I have no idea how that woman gets gauge half the time. The first time I knit it, it was enormous. Now, I have just finished knitting it a second time, and while better, it could still stand to be a bit more snug, but it will do, and he will wear it, I tell you he will wear it.
Finally, this brings us to the tragedy. The tragedy of the man sweater gone terribly wrong.
I swatched, I measured, I knit. It turned out awful. The men's zipped raglan from lmkg is going to be frogged. I started out with such hopes for the first man sweater, but alas the pattern sucks and nothing can be done. The neck is huge and the armholes are all wrong. The sweater is so ridiculous we both couldn't stop laughing to take a decent picture for posterity. A waste of much time and one custom ordered orange zipper. But there were lessons learned, and I am actually really excited to use the yarn to make him EZ's seamless hybrid sweater. I am modeling it on the gorgeous one Brooklyntweed made. (I totally have a knitter crush on brooklytweed, don't tell anyone) Mine will be rather different: not tweed, but variegated, and not DK, but heavy worsted, but I think it will be pretty, and it's a time tested sweater recipe, so hopefully everything will go well. I'm planning to do the hemmed cuffs using some leftover yarn. I tell you I don't know about sweater curses, but I feel cursed when it comes to knitting for my husband. Let's hope my luck is about to change and I will emerge triumphant at last.

2 comments:

Sisters with Letters said...

I'm wondering if you can contact me. I'm making that same men's sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, and I don't understand the sleeve increase. I looked for errata online and found none. Why am I to KFB on the beginning of the increase row when it's a purl? Should I ignore that and increase in the knitted stitches to follow? Sorry to bug you with this, but I needs some halp!

Susan said...

Hi Beth,
Aren't you glad that you waited until marriage to make the man sweater? Such an ugly sweater could be a relationship killer!
You are a great sport to post a picture of it!