It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over

I wonder at times if the draw of creative pursuits, especially during times of stress (ask all the folks who learned to knit during lockdowns last year), is their apparent capacity to ensure a certain outcome. Do your research. Measure. Swatch. Prewash your yarns (yes, I am that kind of weird). Follow the instructions, learn to make adjustments on the fly, and maybe even figure out how much knitting you’ll need to do per day to finish on time, and pace yourself accordingly. At least this is how a product knitter like myself will tend to think about it.

Turns out there aren’t any more guarantees in knitting than in life, homework though we do.

A number of weeks ago I asked for votes on what to make for SweetGeorgia Yarns’ Spring Make-Along; overwhelmingly the votes on the blog and in SGY’s community forums were in favor of Barocco by Stella Egidi (Ravelry link) in SGY Mohair Silk DK. Originally I was leaning in a different direction, but the desire to see how the colors I’d chosen would play together became too much to resist. I’d spent a lot of time looking for a yoke sweater that I thought would fit the way I like; many yoke sweaters have close round or boat necklines and are soft and destructured in the shoulders, which isn’t a look that works well for me, but I thought the wide neck and firm slipped-stitch yoke of Barocco would be perfect.

Speaking of colors, that was my first research point after finding a pattern. The yarns for the sweater were a gift from one of my brothers; he told me to pick the colors and let him know what I wanted. The camera roll on my phone is still cluttered with dozens of screenshots and collages that I took before settling on Black Plum and Lichen.

Fast forward to Make-Along time—I was a good girl and swatched to make sure I got gauge. I soaked and rinsed the excess dye out of all my skeins and hung them up to dry in the shower. I wound my skeins into lovely neat center-pull balls and cast on, even doing a provisional cast-on to ensure that I could tweak the neckline more easily at the end of the project.

The day after the above photo was taken, my family went on a car trip, the first we’ve taken since last March when you-know-what happened, and I carried my project around like a security blanket all weekend. This is how much sweater I had when I got back (and did you notice how well the colorwork came out?):

By the end of the week I was done with the body and ready to start the sleeves; up until this point I’d been trying on the sweater periodically, and perfect fit was emerging. In fact, I was so stoked that I started plotting to do a summer version with short sleeves at some future date.

After knitting a couple of inches on the first sleeve I needed to go into town, so I packed my favorite cross-body tote bag with all the stuff I thought I might possibly need—tape measure, scissors, extra yarn—as one does, and hopped in the car. Rode into town (someone else was driving…don’t worry, I don’t knit and drive at the same time), did my errand, and got back in the car well pleased with myself. But my bag caught in the door, and when I banged it shut there was a very loud and distinct crunch. Behold:

This is at home, where the damage could be examined in all its fullness. I’d slammed the car door on my tote bag and one of my circular needle tips just so happened to be pointing perpendicular to the door, which snapped it clean in half. I’m displaying this grainy, poorly lit photo taken with my cheap phone instead of my fancy mirrorless camera because, well, nobody said snapping a knitting needle in half mid-project was pretty.

And as it so happens, US 6’s aren’t my most commonly used needle size, so I didn’t have a backup set.

So here I am, 6 days out from the Make-Along deadline with less than half of one sleeve finished, and supposedly the USPS just dropped the new set of needles in my mailbox. The weather, meanwhile, is warming up. I’ve been knitting furiously in the interim (on stuff I can’t show you yet); but I must say it is extremely inconvenient and annoying in a comedic way. The course of knitting never did run smooth. One of these days I’ll have a finished sweater to show you; but pardon me if I don’t offer any predictions about when it’ll be done just yet. I suppose I’d better go and check my mail now.