The Last of Freya

So much to share!

First, Freya. She probably could have used still more ease (I'm now convinced it couldn't have been just the sports bra -- I think I also seriously underestimated how much ease the design needed), but it looked so good on her as is, Freya went to Mom:

Anonymom.



Together, we chose the greenish buttons:




And a final look at those cables (I just love them):




Why am I not more upset that it doesn't fit me?

Well, partly because this yarn was on a super sale, and when I bought it, I bought so much that there is actually enough left to make another Freya and 1/2. Not that I plan to make another one, at least not immediately.

But mostly because this is par for the course.

I have made four sweaters ever -- not counting kid sweaters, which are pretty much guaranteed to fit at some point -- and none of them has worked out as planned:

1.) A cabled vest thing (out of some truly awful seafoam acrylic yarn -- what was I thinking???), knit before I understood that there was a thing called "tension." It was supposed to be for me, but it could have fit my Dad. Perhaps two of him, which is saying something. I was a teenager, and the older ladies of the lunchtime "Happy Hookers" club (risque, eh?) I occasionally attended were highly amused. This put me off knitting for a while.

2.) The Doctor's Sweater. Also quite a while ago. He chose the yarn. He chose the pattern. What seemed like a few years later, I finished. The neck was too tight and the sleeves were several inches too short. I think I said I would fix it, but he claimed that the yarn was a good deal more scratchy than he thought it would be, so even if I fixed it, he probably wouldn't wear it that much. (!!!) At the time, I was a little . . . uh . . . disappointed. (In him? In the sweater? Who knows.) But now I think he probably realized that it was beyond my powers to fix, and so he'd better get out now and blame it on the yarn. That one is still somewhere in the Doctor's closet, never worn except for the one time the Doctor tried it on. This also put me off knitting for a while.

3.) A top-down raglan, using one of the "Custom Fit Your Raglan" pyramid schemes out there on the web. It fits, in that I can fit into it. It doesn't fit, in that it looks just awful. Baggy in all the wrong places. Too tight in others. (Have no idea how I managed it!) I can't wear it so much in public, but it is good for keeping warm 'round the house. (Wool.) Too bad it is dry-clean only, because that is a lot of trouble and expense for a cr$ppy jumper one only wears at home. Increasingly cr$ppy with each wearing, as it pills. Gobs and gobs of pills already, and the thing was knitted only a year ago. That being said, this one did not put me off knitting. Probably because it was kinda, sorta wearable.

4.) Freya. You know the story there. Totally wearable. Just not by me. I am not put off knitting one jot.

Better luck next time?

I rather thing so. Because if there's any pattern at all to my adventures in knitting bad sweaters, it is that each sweater is a distinct improvement over the last.

Hopefully that is actually the case -- as opposed to a delusion, which is also possible.

You see, I have my eye on a new sweater, and this one I think I would actually be more-than-miffed if I messed it up.

I don't have the pattern yet, but I am given to understand it will be in my super-splurgey holiday gift to myself.

Which hasn't arrived.

But I'll give you a hint.

It begins with "Aran" and ends with "Knitting."

(Gack! I can't believe I bought it either.)

More soon. (I made out like a bandit.)