Aran Sweater

The sweater for our grand daughter that I started about a year ago is coming up quite nicely. What a pain it has been. I didn't have any problem with the back, or the front pieces, BUT had with the sleeves. Fortunately I am knitting them both at the same time, now.

First, I started with the pattern and knitted away happily. It was going to be one sleeve at a time, BUT, then I noticed, after the first set of pattern stitches (8 rows...and I had done two sets already) that there were instructions for increases. DUH! I had done none. Why didn't the designer tell this before I started my cable pattern set? I had already cut pieces of paper, to make the pattern a continuous flow of rows, instead of : row 6 same as row two, row 7 same as row 3, etc, what a pain to be jumping back and forth, so I make copies and cut the copies to fit the rows, that way I have 8 continuous rows of the cable pattern. Needless to say, I was just too eager to get the sleeve done (I hate, with a passion, making sleeves), that I didn't notice the increases. I had to frog to the end of the first set of cable pattern.

Well, since I had to start almost from the beginning, I decided to do both sleeves at the same time. My next peeve with this pattern is that with the increases you are supposed to fit the increases into a pattern. Well, I don't want to start re-writing the dang pattern, just tell me.
Now I have, on both sides of the sleeves the same dang cable. When I sew them together, as you are supposed to sew the seams to make a sleeve to a tube, where the arm goes. What was I saying? Yes, I will now have two of the same cables side by side, and that is not how it is in the pattern in the middle. I am not going to frog anything any more. Damn, I am annoyed. Of course the seam part isn't always easily in view, unless the other grandmother checks my work, or the girl likes to throw her arms in the air all the time. Oh, well.

Oh, I almost forgot. This pattern some other irritating points. I started with 37 stitches, and am supposed to add 19 stitches EVENLY after the ribbing. Now, I am not a math genius, and don't really like fiddling with calculations, when I once in a blue moon follow a pattern. Sometimes I understand myself very clearly when I wonder about my lack of "eagerness" to follow a pattern.
So, how do you count 19 stitches evenly, from another odd number to an even number? Of course, after trying to count ten times, I decided to add the stitches to best of my calculations. Of course, you guessed it, I didn't quite make it. I got the first sleeve done, but I had done that a year before, I think, when my brain was a year younger. So, this time I was 5 stitches short, which I added when I started the cable pattern. It is not noticeable at all, unless the other grandmother checks my work. I've seen a magnifying glass floating around on her sewing table.

Not saying that anyone will check, no, that's not I am saying.

The sweater is going to be beautiful. I am missing half an inch from the start of the decreases for the sleeve. I am hoping to get the sweater done by Thursday.

I just checked the starting date and it was January 23rd this year. Haha. Here is the picture of the sweater, the one in the middle:

What nice looking pair of jeans those two have. I think I need to go and buy some jeans.

One more thing, why do people, who desperately want to cut in front of you, when there is nobody behind you? Then they don't drive the speed limit, they drive one mile under.

I sometimes wonder if those people know me and want to punish me, for what? but so far I have not recognized any of them. I usually forgive them when I pass, and look, and realize that there is a reason why things like that happen. Sitting glued to the steering wheel and staring at a ghost on the dashboard, would make anyone make stupid moves on the roads. Where do these people get their approval for driving? Yuck. I met two of them this morning, and there isn't even a full moon, or is there? It was a delightful drive to work. Always something entertaining on the way...I should have told you about the third one, on my way home, but I just wanted to get home, and didn't look who was driving, as if it had changed anything. I am a rubber necker, but only when someone makes idiotic moves, not when someone is stopped by the cops on the other side of the highway, like the man in front of me the other day, I almost hit him from behind, and it would have been my fault. I was watching him rubbernecking. Huh? Taught me a lesson, didn't it?