The Albatross

For 1 1/2 years I have been working on a cardigan for my sister. I started calling it my Albatross. Now, I bought the pattern and then got the yarn that the pattern called for. Not a normal behavior for me. I knitted a swatch or two and had to adjust needle size to get the gauge. Again, not normal behavior. I followed the directions. So out of character. But I would have a beautiful gift in the end, right?

My main issue has been decoding the pattern. Several people have assisted me in this endeavor over the past year and a half. People who are fr more experienced knitters than myself. Women who can whip out a sweater while sitting in a theater watching a movie. Women who know the proper way to read charts, patterns and knit like they took classes at a university for it. And they all came to the same conclusion:

This patterns sucks!

(stronger language was used in most cases)

I had bought the correct yarn, and found perfect pewter buttons the size that the pattern called for. (guess what, it needed larger buttons.)

But still, I continued on this torturous quest. The cardigan move from being a birthday present to a Christmas present. To being a Birthday present again. To now, no longer mattering because my sister has lost weight and now would be swimming in the thing should she try it on. But it will get finished because someone will wear this thing. Me or someone.

But finally, last night after a late night run to WalMart to get buttons, it is done. I washed it this morning and it is blocking as we speak and drying. It is not one hundred percent symmetrical, and the buttons pull at the border which it does in the picture, so that one is definitely not my fault. But it's done. I have my large project case back. I can tic a WIP off the list (there by allowing me to cast on 2 new projects).

It may never be worn, but it is done.

Frantic

So I have guests coming to visit and I am in a complete panic. Will they care if I haven't scrubbed the baseboards recently? Not really. They are here to see me and my lovely, newly engaged sister. Here I am running around the house frantic. This morning at 4:30 am I bleached out my trash can. Are they going to even notice? No. And really I hope not.

My Christmas knitting isn't near done, but there has been a development in the sweater for my sister. I've FINALLY figured out the pattern correction for the damn sleeves. It took calling in a Cal Berkeley Mathmatician, an honest to god Artist, a Seamstress, every engineer I know outside of family, and my own creative blend of proportion theory and astronomical calculations. (literally of the stars) And now, I can almost see the end in sight for this albatross. Soon it will be done. But I've been trying to get it finished for this weekend, so I've been knitting up a storm, frantic.

So, two days to go and here is the conclusion I've come to. I need to read a book. I need to paint my nails. I need to cast on a project that won't be due until next fall. I need to do yoga with Annie. I need to take a walk, hang out with the girls, go swimming, relax at knit night and enjoy an over-priced coffee.

My house will not look like a museum or a clean room for creating vaccines. It will be cozy and warm. Where you want to snuggle up on the couch and watch the fire. Sit on a barstool at the kitchen counter sipping coffee and chatting away. You will be over come, upon entering my house, to take off your shoes and run around in your socks. You will snooze gazing out the window, have homemade jam on warm toast, Put a few more ornaments on the Christmas tree, and stick you finger into and taste whatever is cooking on the stove.

You will feel at ease and not even notice that I haven't vacummed under the couch in a month.

And no one entering my house will be Frantic.