Jon's Knit Blog

Ah, Summer.

Ah, the joys of pinwheels and blue sky. What? You think I'm talking about something outside? No, I'm talking about my new project:

It's actually called the "Child's Geek Spiral Pullover" but as I both detest that name and the yarn called for, Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille, I've renamed it. I'm working in Blue Sky Cotton (which I bought at Knit Happens last week). And that's where I tracked down the pattern, too.

I had, honestly, been looking for a pattern because the baby girl (you know, the one getting Rosetta) who is planning to be born has a big brother who's going to be 2 at the end of August. And I can't very well take his sister a crazy intarsia blanket and he only get something store-bought. So I was looking for a pattern of something to make for him. There were rules, right Holly? Rules, I tell you.

No intarsia. Nothing crazy. No complicated pattern that would cause me to fuck up and have to restart the whole thing over again.

So I was looking through books, browsing various patterns, and I started looking at this book called Loop-d-Loop, which is full of some of the most atrocious patterns I have ever seen. As I was flipping through it going, "Nasty. Nasty. Horrid. Crime against Nature," I found this sweater (which I can't find an online photo of... yet), and I said, immediately, "That's what I'm making."

And so I am. Although I changed the yarn. I tried to not have to make a gauge swatch, but I got about a third of the way up the sleeve, and Wendy, sitting across from me, said something to the effect of "Did you measure it yet?" So someone gave me a ruler and the next thing you know, I’m holding my head in my hands, and everyone instantly knew.

"Didn’t get gauge, did ya?"

"How far off were you?"

So I went from 6’s to 8’s. And I was damn close. Close enough that I just decided, "Screw it, I’m going to make it." I almost finished the first sleeve that day in Alexandria. Oh, what joy it was to knit pure, plain, unadulterated stockinette stitch, in one, simple color, in yarn that says it’s cotton but feels almost like there’s silk in there. So on Saturday night, I finished the second sleeve and started the front.

That’s when that false start came about. And tonight, I decided that I’d do it over, and do it right. I’m glad I did, because I think, that after two movies and four rows of triangles (the pattern is picked-up stitches and decreases to make triangles, in garter stitch), it looks pretty damn cool. And there’s something to be said for pinwheels and blue sky. Right?

Posted by Jon at May 31, 2005 03:56 AM