My Esteemed Associates

I am trudging through a particularly dull patch of black stockinette.  This would be the third incarnation of the Frog Prince sleeve, whose glamour is well and truly off, at the moment.  It's one of those stretches whose progress is both slow and invisible; measurable only by the intensity of the cramp forming in my brain. 

Slow doesn't begin to describe it. 

Glacial. 

Snailworthy.

I looked across my desk for validation, if not inspiration, from Clementine.  She reminded me that the new pet I got her, Gary, could probably feel my pain.

Gary, as you can see, is an actual snail.  I got him as a present for Clementine, to keep her company, and to clean up around the place (not much of a housekeeper, my fish).  So far Gary does a bang-up job in both respects.  But he does neither job quickly, nor would Clementine expect him to.

And then, clever beast that I am, I made the connection:  The issue is not that my sleeve is slow to progress; it's that my perception of how long a sleeve should take is wrong.  It's wrong because I have started the sleeve three times, which cumulatively should add up to at least one finished sleeve, even though it hasn't.  Ever sit in traffic for a really long time and think "I could have driven to Fargo North Dakota by now"?  That's this sleeve.  I could have been to Fargo, but I haven't even gotten across town.

None of this would bother Gary.  His pace is exactly as it should be, which is Snailworthy.  No amount of fretting or flagellation is going to increase the acreage he covers.

Humans should be so patient.  That's what we get for coming out of our shells.

The Frogging of the Frog

In which I fail to make it look easy.  Not that any of you, Gentle Readers, thought it was easy anyway.  But apparently it's time for the other shoe to drop:

This would be the second time that I have frogged back the sleeve, which also requires removing the side shaping, and blah blah blah, it really sucks.

It's not that I got cocky.  I wasn't even a little bit overconfident.  In fact, I had begun to suspect that I was overdue for some kind of knuckle-rappery at the hands of the universe.  You see, I knew that this jacket was going to be trouble.  I managed to avoid making this pattern for more than a year because I knew it was gonna be Tricky.  And by "Tricky", I mean "Lock-yourself-in-a-dark-room, No-mommy's-not-drinking-alone-in-here" freaking complicated to figure out.  You see, the original Frog Prince wasn't even a sweater.  It was a boiled-wool jacket, with pieces of knitting appliquéd onto it.  It was a tailoring project that I set for myself one time, just to see if it could be done.  And it could.  And I was glad when I had done it. 

But then I wore it out in public, which, it turns out, is where they keep the Knitters.  Knitters have crossed rooms, crossed traffic, and crossed the boundaries of personal space to ask me about it.  And when I say "Ask", I mean "Gimme!  WANT!  Need-that-pattern-right-away-or-I-will-die-and-it-will-be-on-your-head-missy!"  Not wanting to be responsible for the demise of any fellow knitters (bad bit of Karmic debt, that), I eventually admitted to myself that I had to make a Frog Prince Pattern.  Which required that I make a Frog Prince Sweater.

So it's not the body knitting that has me flummoxed, but the shaping of the sleeves.  The original jacket had a set-in sleeve with a very traditional, high armscye and a saucy, gathered cap.  Fine for the body and drape of boiled wool, but not worth a damn for a knitted sweater.  No, the sweater needed a dolman sleeve in order to be cunningly worked in the direction I had in mind, while still incorporating the sassy gathered sleeve caps of the original. 

Nothing to it.  Until I realized that I have never knitted a dolman sleeve before.  The first version came out all Kimono.  The second was decidedly Batwing.  I have moderate hopes for the third incarnation, but I have to admit it feels like I'm starting to lose ground.  Remember back when I smugly proclaimed that the project was still full of promise because I hadn't jacked it up yet?  Well that ship has sailed, I'm sorry to say.  I'm quickly falling out of love with the Frog Prince.

Still, he's kinda cute.  Maybe just one more kiss.

 

Cutthroat

As I was working on the Frog Prince neck shaping, I realized that my dining room table had become kind of an interesting tableau: A snapshot of how I work.  Clockwise from upper left: My trusty gridlined Moleskine design notebook, which is never more than a foot away from me, even when I sleep (TMI?); Knitting chart, underneath workbag with stitch marker box (In which I would also keep cable needles, if I could ever find any); Pile of unperused mail (not germane to project - just part of the landscape); Actual work in progress; and blue painter's tape, without which I probably could not make sweaters (more about that in my book).

More waste yarn marking lines, adjacent to which I will machine-stitch the neck curve outline.  Notice that it's not exactly a curve at this point - that little corner formed by the intersection of the marking yarn will round out on its own.  More Pure Magic.

Here is the actual neckline stitching, with the marking lines removed.  You can also see that the original live stitches from the top of the knitted tube are all just held on spare yarn.  The live stitches on the left will become the shoulder seam.  Those on the right...well, see below:

Sacrificed for the greater good.  Here I have mercilessly hacked off a section of perfectly sound knitting, in order to make room for the wearer's head and neck.  Without doing this, there would be no neckline, making for extremely awkward wear.  Knitting is not for weenies.  

Lest you think me too callus for ruthlessly discarding pieces of my hard won knitting, I wanted to show you this:  The actual amount of wasted knitting = about 3 square inches.  Not a bad trade for never purling back on the wrong side of the knitting.  Have I mentioned it's Magic?  Pure Magic.