Friends Bearing Gifts

Today I was going to tell you how this weekend I made yarn while the sun was still shining.  I was going to tell you that I have reached a milepost in the washing of the sheep, in that half of my fleece is now clean.  I was going to tell you that I even have a second bobbin of it all spun up, which will be ply #2 of the 5-ply I am dreaming of.  I was even going to tell you about how I have begun to imagine what my perfect black sheep gansey might look like, should I live long enough to scour and spin the second half of the circus tent fleece.

But then my friend Collier came home from his trip to Ireland, and every thought about my current and future knitting projects (and I have MANY) went clean out of my head.  He came over to our house especially to bring me this:

You see, my friend Collier asked me very kindly if there was anything I'd like him to bring me back from Ireland, and I of course said YARN, not really thinking he'd be able to find any.  I mean, if I landed in Ireland, I would not necessarily know where to look for yarn, though I'm an expert at sensing its presence, so I didn't really expect Collier to spend a lot of his vacation on a yarn quest. 

Lucky for me, I was SO wrong.  Dude has Master Yarn Sniffing Skills.  Can you believe the bounty?  There are 5, count them 5, skeins of this, and it's my favorite color and everything.  The color is called Bilberry (who knew?) and I am in love.  Oh, and get this:  It cost so dang many Euros that Collier decided my "punishment" would be that I have to knit HIM a sweater, too, so there are also 6 skeins of this in Jacob color for me to make him his Dream Aran.  Can you believe it?  It's my greatest "Will Work For Yarn" fantasy come to life. 

I have the best friends in the entire world, and Collier is their King.

Here is a picture, taken immediately after Collier left. 

Phillip:     "Would you like me to sleep on the couch tonight so you two can be alone?
Me:          "Would you?"
 

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.