I just counted up, and I believe that when I seam the little sweater I finished knitting over the weekend, I will have produced 25 sweaters since 2007. The thing is, I'm never quiiiite happy with them.
Usually, the kid-sized sweaters are fine. Maybe it's just that the adult sweater provides a larger canvas, on which one's knitterly shortcomings are writ large.
Lessons learned from adult sweater #1: I like variegated yarn better in the hank than I do knitted up. Also, feather in new skeins. And: don't try on a new sweater at 29 weeks pregnant (look at little tiny Stella!) and expect it to suit you.
Maybe some of it is that there is just a fair amount of acreage in an adult body, and I am drawn to fine-gauge sweaters. Remember the Yurt Effect? I have never made an adult sweater without thinking, "How can I possibly require this much coverage? And then when you invest that many hours in a project, you want it to be exactly right, dernit.
Kate Davies released a stunning design in the summer of 2013. I was so taken by it that I purchased the pattern and yarn immediately. I finished it up last night (it's the first picture in this post) ...And I'm not quiiiite happy. It needs a little more ease, and I should have been a little braver about adjusting the measurements to suit my own personal body, and I overcompensated for the slightly-too-tight bindoff of my February Lady Sweater (at right) and wound up with something a little too floppy. And it's itchy to boot.
Probably there is some Life Lesson here in my recurring disappointment. Maybe I should be learning acceptance of my own imperfections, or detachment, or freedom from vanity or something like that. Or at least better fashion sense -- it turns out that a scoopneck colorwork sweater made of Shetland wool is a bad idea. Two layers of Shetland wool will provide a person with a lot of insulation, and so to wear the sweater comfortably you need a day cold enough to require a lot of insulation and warm enough for a scoopneck. (<-Note meteorological oxymoron.)
Perhaps I thought I could knit myself a sweater that would transport me to a magical Edinburgh summer, where the wind rustles in the gorse bushes and buttonbands never gap. I should know better than that, I suppose. Over time I have fixed some of the things that bugged me about earlier sweaters -- I made Sculpey buttons for the FLS and I like them much better than the ones in the picture. Maybe I could re-block this new sweater so it works a bit better, or maybe there's some helpful solution that will occur to me in a week or two.
Tonight, though, I'm thinking I've had enough of sweaters for a while.
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