Procrastination

Why Mamma, you might be thinking to yourself, you should not be blogging.  Aren't you supposed to be working hard knitting, knitting, knitting on your test knit for Knit Picks?

You would not be wrong.

But you would be underestimating my ability to procrastinate when I am having a crisis of confidence.

My test knit is a beautiful piece of color work.

GORGEOUS!

My gauge swatch is quite possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever knit.

The actual object I am to be knitting is so much larger than a swatch.  So many more chances to screw it up.

I have to talk myself into believing I can do this.

I once knit a pair of pink and green knee high argyle socks for Knit Picks using traditional intarsia AND stranded knitting techniques.

They were amazing.

I'm not gonna lie.  I stared at that yarn just thinking about knitting it for about a week before I finally gained the courage to cast on.

Once I start knitting it will be just fine.

I just gotta talk myself into casting on.

In the mean time let me distract you with some fine knitting.

Last night, whilst I was thinking of knitting, you know, instead of actually knitting, I sewed some buttons onto a cardigan.

Nope, not on the brown sweater.  The brown sweater may be dead to me for a few more weeks.  The button betrayal of Wednesday was a low blow.  I am wounded to my core.

Instead I turned to that other sweater that needs buttons.

Pattern:  Division Cardigan

Yarn:  Malabrigo sock yarn, 3 skeins

Needles:  size 6, probably on my Addis

Modifications:  I knit this while on narcotics.  I could have followed the pattern exactly as written.  Or I could have looked at the picture and made the rest up as I went along.  Since the sweater fits-ish, and only has two sleeves, I'm gonna guess I followed the pattern as written.

Review:  I love this sweater.  This is my other Malabrigo sock yarn sweater, and I'm thinking I need to get adopted by some rich old guy who will soon die and leave me lots and lots of yarn money, or win the lottery so all my sweaters can now be knit in Malabrigo.  I bought this yarn at a Mother's Day sale where everything in the store was half off.  It was awesome.  The yarn store has since gone out of business.

Let us observe a moment of silence for the fallen.

I do love the shaded solid of this yarn.

So pretty, with very minimal pooling or striping.  I appreciate that.  This was one of those projects where I probably should have alternated the skeins, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do that.  Sometimes when you throw caution to the wind it does work out.

I love my long sleeves.

Super long sleeves make me happy.  They are the reason I started making my own sweaters

I love this sweater so much.  It is warmer than you think a sock yarn sweater would be.  It is super soft.  Not the slightest bit of itch.  Yes, I think I need a hundred more of these.  One in every color Malabrigo makes.

I can't decide if the sweater needs more ease.  It is very form fitted when worn closed.  Possibly unflatteringly form fitted. But let's be honest, I so very rarely close my cardigans. I think the close fit = a sleeker look when worn open.  But what if I decided I want to wear it closed?

I'm not going to lose sleep over the ease debate.  I've decided instead to toss and turn over the button fiasco of Thursday.

No not the one where I sewed buttons onto a cardigan only to discover the fronts don't line up.  No, this button fiasco involved spending an hour searching for eight suitable buttons only to decide that the only over priced buttons in the entire store that I thought might work, not loved, but determined would be adequate, were sold in a package of six.  And there was only one package.

Suck monkey.

Sacrifices would have to be made.

I decided that I would buy the six buttons now, and come back in a week or so when they were sure to have restocked.  But that meant my sweater with eight button holes

Would be missing some buttons in the interim.

I feel a little like a hobo missing buttons on my sweater.

And it turns out that despite testing the buttons in the store, the "adequate" buttons are in fact too small for the buttons holes, and they slip right out.  My cardigan wouldn't stay closed even if I wanted to close it.

Suck Monkey

So I must decide, do I want to find eight new overpriced blue buttons, or do I want to buy another card of too small buttons and sew the final two buttons on as a purely ornamental decoration?

I'll probably just walk around looking like a hobo in my button-missing cardigan until the end of time.  It is less complicated this way.

I'm sure me and my hobo cardigan will be very happy together.

I got out my tripod with the intention of taking these pictures with the timer setting on my camera.  Instead the pictures were taken by Sweet Pea standing on the piano bench to reach the camera on the tripod.  Her face was all wrinkled with concentration.  I wish I could have taken a picture of that.  Instead I could only laugh at how incredibly sweet she is.

Sweet Pea looked at the preview of this picture in the camera and declared it to be "Perfect."

Then she joined me in front of the camera.

The Greatest calls her my little mini-me.  She's way too cute for that.

Someday she is going to hate me for this picture.  Which means I am fulfilling all my contractual obligations as her mother.

Embarrassing photos = check.