Minutiae

I arranged the TV show sweater-vest work in progress near the window for a photo.  Clementine, my devoted desktop associate and sometime critic has come in for a closer look.  She expressed her approval by blowing bubbles.

What you can't tell from this picture is that this has been the Gnarliest hem facing of my entire knitting career.  Why Gnarly?  Because I decided that I wanted a wrap sweater without pausing to weigh the ramifications; namely that a sweater which wraps must overlap itself by about a third.  More sweater width = more stitches.  No big deal that, unless you are a dumbass who wants to make a sweater out of sock yarn.  You guessed it:  320 stitches in a row on US size 2 needles.  And if that weren't bad enough, the depth of the hem to be faced meant that I shouldn't join the round until after the facing was done, amounting to 38 rows of FLAT stockinette.  Flat stockinette, in my opinion, is the knitting equivalent of sitting through a lecture on Dung Beetle Husbandry.  With a hangover.  Flat stockinette in sock yarn on size 2's with 320 stitches in a row is the knitting equivalent of being number 427 in line at the DMV.  On Christmas Eve.  When the "now serving" sign says "8".  And having to pee.  

So when I tell you that it took me three days to push through the wall on the @$%*! hem facing, I hope you will appreciate the relief and triumph with which I began the sweater part of the sweater.  And you will also understand how it is that I know Clementine approves.  She wouldn't dare not.

Here's a better view of the interesting part, now happily joined in a round and well underway:

I am beginning to think that hand painted yarn is the only way I want to live.  The colors are so much more complicated.  So deeply nuanced, and full of surprises!  It's the difference between poster paint and watercolors.  Clementine approves, and so do I - fish are seldom wrong about knitting.