If I tried to write up everything that happened during this year's Iknitarod it would probably read more like Homer's Odyssey...with some lots of "grown up words". Most of it was documented on my Instagram/Facebook feed and sadly not here (where I really want it). If you weren't following along, here is a Reader's Digest version.
I cast on during the Ceremonial Start. I hit the patterning section and the stitches per inch gauge went haywire. I'd swatched the stockinette section, but not the patterning, which was a "rookie mistake" by a non-rookie. Turns out it wouldn't have helped. Things got that crazy.
I knit and reknit the top 20 rows two or three times, changing needles...to try to "get gauge" and finally gave up and went up a pattern size and then knit on with confidence. I got to the body and about four inches in started knitting tighter and tighter and kept knitting on "with confidence" and around 11 inches in decided it was terrible (which I knew at, say, six inches) and ripped the whole body back to the starburst.
The second reknit of the body ended up getting looser as I went on (slow learner), so much so that the bottom flared out. But that wasn't the only issue. The sleeves were huge as well. I should have stayed with the original pattern size I'd swatched for...and done a better job knitting. The sweater was wearable, but as I said on my IG post, that was not the W I was looking for. I frogged the entire thing.
Since I was ripping back to the start I decided to try to do the entire top in Mrs. Pepperpot's white. I'd had quite a bit of white left over and it measured out to the same amount of all the grays I'd used plus I was going down a pattern size, so I should be golden. I knit the entire top...well, most of it. I got to two rows left...and was out of white.
Mathematically that should not have happened. So why did it? I'd knit a smaller pattern size, with the same needle as before...and slopped it out. Gauge and tension matter. This is not breaking news. And even if it was, I should have already learned that lesson the hard way...TWICE. I ripped it all back out again.
By now I was just knitting on with [persistence]...and much more care/attention. I'd had questions about how the yarn was holding up (a good question for sure!) and I am happy to report that Muffin and Mrs. Pepperpot, (Oh, those good longwool crosses :-) held up bravely.
Pip hung in there until the very end as well and I think really enjoyed the whole event. Stella of course approved all the rips back to "do it right" even though several other neighbors were starting to have thoughts of calling in the white coats. In the end, Saint Tim said it best, "Well worth the effort."
All in all it was a fun trip. The sweater is lovely and I finished this project a much better and more careful knitter. I'm sad I didn't get it finished in time for a winter picture, but the weather yesterday was definitely cold enough for a photo shoot and honestly, Mother's Day was the perfect day to celebrate this mother-daughter sweater.
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