monkeymom's Diaryland Diary
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In which it takes a long time to knit a sweater.
Woot! I just finished the first sleeve of the Nagano sweater. Don't be too impressed, it was about 2/3 of the way done when I started, but I did have to rip back an couple of inches because I had experimented with a size 2 needle at some point in the last 6 years, so there was an inch of sleeve that was knitted on a too-small needle and I tried to tell myself that it wasn't noticeable, and that it would block out, but it was bothering me, so I gave in, ripped it back and then got on with finishing it. I just want to mention here how much I was helped by a knitting needle that Inger gave me for Christmas in a bag of knitting stuff! It was exactly what I needed!
I thought about doing the second sleeve next, but I've got so much done on the body and it really does look overwhelming, what with trying to find my place in the chart with the little symbols and all, so I'm going to sit down in a quiet place and figure out where I am and then just work on it until it's done.
I was sitting next to someone in Sunday School today who always admires my sock knitting (it's all she ever sees me working on, because I always have one in my purse to work on when I'm out in public) and I was explaining to her about the Nagano sweater, and how I've been working on it for a long time but this is the year that I'm going to finish it, and I showed her a picture of Scott in his Dale sweater so she could see how complicated it all is, and she asked me how long it takes to make one. Umm, about 6 years, apparently.
Actually, it takes about three months if you are working on other things occasionally, too, which is how long it took to make the surprise sweater for Rachel's birthday in 2003. I started it one month before her birthday with high hopes of finishing it in time, and then got sick of working on that exclusively, and finally finished it on Thanksgiving day. So it took three months, from mid-August to late November.
Jeanette told me that she skips over the parts of my journal with a lot of knitting content, so she can start reading here. Hey, I could hide information from her by putting it in the middle of a paragraph about stitch counts and gauge!
Rachel was gone all weekend visiting friends from college, and just got back this evening, and Kim was gone at her friend Sando's to play video games and guzzle Mountain Dew while his parents are out of town, so yesterday I was a little bored and I sat down with a family history book that one of Rich's uncles made and started entering information into the PAF on my PC and it was so much fun! I kept entering names off and on yesterday, because after Kim got home she wanted to finish her Link Four Swords game and I couldn't use the Gamecube for Animal Crossing. I finished the book today, and it was cool because I felt like a detective when I skimmed one of the obituaries he had included in the book and found that a person's name was different than what he had put in another place, and then I found a bunch of extra family members listed in the obituary!
I was having so much fun playing with the PAF that I wrote email to two people to ask them for more information, and I called Rich's mom and asked her to collect the birthdays of her brothers and sisters and their children and grandchildren! She asked if she could have a week, so I must have sounded like it was urgent. I told her to take her time.
11:59 p.m. - 2006-01-08
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