Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Y'all are the best

Thank you. Thank you to everyone who was brave enough to tell me to frog it. And thank you to everyone who said nice things (both on the pro- and anti-frog side). And thanks especially for coming out of the woodwork at a moment's notice to weigh in so I didn't have to make this decision all by my lonesome. (Although yes, those of you who basically said, "come on, you know what you have to do" were right; sometimes, though, one needs the backing of a few friends to get through something like this - better than a bottle of tequila, right? Look ma, no hangover!)

The semi-sweater from the pictures yesterday is now a bunch of little balls of yarn. It never ceases to amaze me how (relatively) quickly something that took so long to put together can come apart. (By "quickly", I mean an hour of ripping. It went faster once I remembered that I'd seamed the sides. Oops.) Brandy was not required for marination - I managed the whole process on the strength of a single glass of wine.

I think Mary Lou put it best when she said that, from the pictures, it looks like this thing should be a sweater with a shrug-like opening, rather than an actual shrug. And a sweater with a shrug-like opening is what I wanted - frankly, I have tried the shrug thing, and it does not suit.

I not only ripped last night, but I also pulled up my big girl panties and cast on again and finished the first two rows before going to bed. This is part of my general strategy to ensure that I don't fall prey to, for example, second sock syndrome - the (re)starting of a project is somehow much more daunting to me than the continuing of it. That isn't to say that I am not distracted by my share of shiny objects that lure me from the path of project completion, but at least this way it's started and in the bag and ready to go. Updates will be posted as they are warranted.

Meanwhile, have a glass of wine (or single-malt, your call) on me, and may all of your projects go more smoothly than this one has.

16 comments:

Willow said...

Wise decision :) and it's most likely best that brandy wasn't involved as you might have simply giggled your way to bed without restarting with the cast on.

The yarn is lovely enough that it will be (almost) a joy to reknit it.

On the linguistics front, I got to talk about INfixes a little bit today when I was explaining prefixes and suffixes. Fun :)

Willow said...

About infixes: Do you mean the 'bowdlerized' version of Eliza Doolittle's song? sittin' absobloominlutely still? ;)

Any others, well, not to 5th and 6th graders.

Anonymous said...

sigh. You are a strong and brave woman. This pattern has been so difficult, for something that's really not all that hard! I'll toast you from my coast.

Mary Lou said...

I'm on my third start for a fairly simple bulky cowl. Time for some wine.

Jane said...

I admire your patience. When things went wrong, I always called my mum, I knew I'd grown up when she told me to sort it myself. It took a bit longer to accept that sometimes things have to be taken out and redone. Hope this time you will get exactly what you want

Nana Sadie said...

Congratulations - on it only taking one glass of wine!
:)
I finished socks, got ready to knit cat mittens, and today, continued socks...I still have 3 pair OTN. All without wine.
(sigh)
(((hugs)))

RobinH said...

This would have taken a lot of whine for me to frog! But I think you'll be much happier with it in the end.

Also, I have a strong rational prejudice against cropped sweaters (or anything else). It's the cold winters...I think things like, 'okay it's cute but what's the point when you'd need a layer of polar fleece on top to keep from freezing?'. Not nearly so much of an issue for you, I realize!

Katie said...

Good for you. That was brave and I hope the redo goes smoothly.

Sorry I didn't weigh in - puppy madness got me behind on blog reading.

Gwen said...

Aw, I missed joining in the frog chorus!

twinsetellen said...

I wish I could have been there to do the frogging for you - it is so much easier to take that way. I was out of the loop during the debate, but now that I'm catching up I fully support the going to a larger size - except watch the sleeve width. That looked just about right on the first version and if you can keep it, I would.

Stell said...

I didn't get there fast enough but agree that if you wanted it to look like the pattern photo frogging(my spellcheck suggests flogging!) was in order. for the record I liked it until I saw the pattern photo . and Renew what you were aiming at. And yes. start mg over often requires fortification.

EGunn said...

Oh dear. I'm reading posts backwards again, catching up on things. I'm sorry you had to frog! I agree that it's always easiest to cast on again immediately, before there's time to make excuses about why you're not getting to it. Hope it works out this time!

Laurie said...

I'll opt for the single malt...that is if you don't have any tequila left. ;-)

Alwen said...

I can usually tell what I really want (or need) to do by how I feel about the advice I'm getting.

If I feel that one set of people don't get the point at all, well, hmmmm, maybe I've already decided and just need to let myself know!

AlisonH said...

Brave soul. For me it would have sat in a ziploc for three years first.

Bea said...

Congrats!!