Coming Unraveled

So, there is a certain person in our every-year-Christmas-gift-giving group who collects things pertaining to a certain member of the animal species – and has been doing so for a number of years now.

The length of time spent building this collection makes finding things that are “unusual” enough to present as gifts an increasingly tricky thing to accomplish. A person who is an actual collector doesn’t want to have fifteen exactly identical because they are also readily available statues of Buddha conveniently available for purchase at any even vaguely Oriental-themed store, ya know?!

I’d been having one of my infamous “you know what would be cool?” thoughts about this for a while. (Which, as y’all know, generally prefaces something that will take hours and hours and HOURS of work to accomplish and which may or may not actually BE cool at the end of all things.)

AND THUS IT WAS that, first morning cup of coffee in hand, I logged into Ravelry this morning to start searching for an existing pattern relating to this animal.

It’s not that uncommon an animal.

I figured there had to be somebody out there who had the same lack of taste sense of humor as I do.

So I start leafing through the Ravelry pattern library.

{several hours pass}

{several completely unrelated patterns are added to favorites / queue}

{several yarns are researched}

{a few Thoughts are expressed on topics such as mittens v. gloves, whether or not a given yarn is ‘scratchy,’ lace knitting, steeking, and whether or not vintage patterns are worth all the huff and bother and how it is even possible that Victorian knitters could produce anything resembling clothes when their instructions did not always include such basic things as such-and-so weight of yarn}

{several internal dialogs re: you already have a similar-enough yarn in your stash, quit shopping for new yarn! are held}

Finally, I found a perfect example of what I wanted to do! Perfect!

…aaaaaaaaand, only found in a long-ago discontinued pamphlet…

TO eBAY! AWAY!

{several hours pass}

{approximately $3,800 in unrelated vintage patterns, yarns, instruction books in new crafts, and an antique butter churn are added to, and then removed from, my cart}

EVENTUALLY, the pamphlet is found and acquired.

And then I look at the time and go, “!?!?!?!?!” and have a minor meltdown because ohmygah, did I SERIOUSLY take over two hours JUST to get the pattern squared away?!?!

Also…my coffee got cold.

…sigh…I know, right? The trials and tribulations of my life rank right on up there with

Anyway! While I’m waiting for that pattern book to arrive by media mail (rhymes with, “don’t hold your breath”), I’m working on this – which is Norah Gaughan’s “Breaktime Beauty” from ‘The Best of Knitter’s Jackets.’

I’m using some Cascade 220 that I’ve had in my stash for, um, well…a whole lot of years. It’s not actually navy, either – it’s a very deep purple that my phone’s camera really doesn’t seem to like to render correctly.

I started that because I (finally) finished this.

Which is one of Those Things where I started off having a pattern, but then did so much “oh, but, I don’t like that lace pattern with this yarn” and “but, I’d rather if it came in a little more below the breast…and also did not expose my midriff because, well, let’s just NOT do that” and “wait…given that the yarn has such looooong pattern repeats…if I do each side separately…it’s going to be way different left-v-right, front-v-back…is that going to bug me? it totally is, isn’t it…”

So then I went all maverick and worked it in the round right to the bitter end, adding some stitches for a steek and making it have very-short sleeves instead of bare shoulders.

And then I got amused by the idea of it being “pointy,” so when blocking it I tugged the hem down into scallops and the sleeves out at the tops so that it looks vaguely like something out of Star Trek when worn. Mwah.

(Yeah, my sense of style is sadly lacking. And also I am far too easily amused. But at least you can [probably] sleep soundly at night, knowing that you’re not about to receive a giant, hand-knitted lizard-patterned sweater for Christmas from your rather off-the-beaten-path family member…)