Knitting projects of mine tend to follow a predictable path.
There is a grand beginning,full of magnificent ideas of how the end product will look—how fabulous and fantastic it will be, with compliments pouring in and filling me up like a helium balloon. This focus on the end result, and glossing over the actual journey/hard work/attention to detail had brought me to a stash of unfinished projects with/ without the pattern, knitting needles or sufficient yarn. Nothing much was ever completed and used.
My smart, long suffering mother had begun using these unfinished summer vacation projects anyway.. Our home had half embroidered cushion covers, dwarf scarves, lonely crochet coasters…It didn’t faze her at all, but I didn’t learn my lesson either.
Decades whooshed past, and the pile of unfinished projects kept growing through the years. And then, after moving to Ranikhet, I connected with many a soulmate in our cosy knitting club. We would meet every month, and share the progress on our knitting projects. But when Ravelry searches were shared, designs exchanged and wool ordered, a new project would start with the earlier one kept aside.. The time had come to take a collective oath, and the group really helped. I began to take one knitting project to the finish, regardless of the strong temptation to begin a new one. In fact, all of us embraced the path of single project knitting and it was a good decision. We have large blankets, coats and pullovers as proof!
During this lockdown, I wanted to start an easy knitting project for the evenings to unwind and relax after house-work, doggy-feeding work, and news-watching work.
There was this lovely yarn in my stash, and I combined it with a sock yarn, and a pashmina yarn to make this marled sweater. Easy, well written pattern by this prolific knitter and indie yarn dyer was selected. I got the gauge correct and was already dreaming of making the perfect slouchy sweater for long winter evenings….see? again? The focus on the end result instead of the process?
Since the sweater was completely reversible, I decided to go with the reverse stockinette side as my choice. Chose to knit an I-cord border for the edges and neckline, completed the knitting with a flourish, and blocked it. The sweater looked decidedly weird. The edges were curled , there were loops aplenty of missed yarn on the reverse side, the sleeves had a conical shape ( I had reduced stitches too quickly, instead of following the pattern instructions), and the neck was hilarious. The final straw? The stocking stitch looked much better than the reverse side, which meant that the edgings had to be given some more attention.
It was time to get back to knitting for perfection..it meant ripping out the iffy bits and getting back to recalculating stitches and needle sizes. The lower edge was given the folded border, knitted with thinner needles and yarn ( I removed one of the three yarns which had gone into making the marled wool).
Ripped out the neck edging and made a comfortable, easy-peasy folded neckline.
The sleeves had to be ripped back for 6 inches and reknit with accurate decreases and thicker needles. The same folded, comfortable border was the final touch.
Thanks to all that frogging and ripping and recalculating and re-working, I now have a functional, warm and comfortable pullover to pull on for doggy walks, for curling up and working on that window bayseat, for driving to the market, and for catching up with friends once the lockdown lifts.
It will, however, always be known as the lockdown sweater (ripping and redoing sweaters is mundanely monotonous for me), and every time I cuddle into it’s cosiness, I will be reminded of these days of solitude, quiet days, vacuuming, and making 15 chappatis for the dogs, every day, every single day…
