It's An Oldie, But Is It a Goodie?

Living in Los Angeles, where we just barely have seasons, I sometimes say that one can lose track of the time of year, the way you lose track of the days of the week when you're on vacation.

Recently, I've had cause to believe the (almost) lack of seasons has possibly encouraged my internal, passage-of-time clock to become actually more sensitive.

The sweater I'm about to show-and-tell is a case in point. I started working on this sweater exactly one year ago. I charged into the project, was completely monogamous with it, made lots of progress, then stopped abruptly before completion. I put it and the remaining yarn in a ziploc bag and forgot about it. It may very well have stayed forgotten. But last week, out of nowhere, I started thinking about it again. I didn't see it in the ziploc. I was not organizing the stash. I was not doing a project inventory. I just spontaneously remembered this sweater. My only explanation is my subconscious reminded me of the thing I was working on exactly this time last year.

So I've decided to drag this back out and reassess. I might try to finish it up. I might put it back in the ziploc and forget about it for another year. Not sure. Either way, though, I figure I'll air it out on the blog.

The yarn is Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran in color 01. I got it on sale at my LYS. I decided to design and knit something for myself with it. (It had been 50% off, I think. If the design didn't work out, I wouldn't stress about what I'd spent on the yarn.)

I wanted a spring to summer cardigan. Something cute to toss on over a tee shirt. It was to be long and narrow with probably 3/4 length sleeves. I'd be willing to make the sleeves shorter if I ran out of yarn.

Back when I lived in Phoenix, I would carry a cardigan with me more during the insanely hot summers than any other time of year because the air conditioning indoors is so aggressive. Someone once called me "queen of the twin set". To this day, I hardly ever leave the house without a 'what if I get cold?' back up plan. This sweater was meant to fit that back up plan category.

Here are the fronts:



And here's the back. (That's not waist shaping, it's just that the edges are curling in and I couldn't get them to lie flat for the picture.)



The edge which leads into the cables is Brunhilda's Broom Border from Knitting on the Edge.



I bought pretty, mother of pearl buttons. You'll notice they're not attached, though.



I seamed the fronts and backs at the shoulder. I started the sleeves and stopped just a few rows short of finishing the edging. The sleeve cuffs are together on one circular needle in this picture.



I think the biggest reason I stopped working on this was I don't really know how to do the math to figure out the shape and size the sleeve cap should be. I had made the fronts and back for set-in sleeves. I just kind of eyeballed the bind offs and decreases. But when faced with the prospect of knitting a sleeve cap which would need to fit the arm hole, I got stumped.

I think the other reason I stopped working on it was that I'm not sure it's turning into what I want. I think it's cute, but I'm worried it's too cute. Are those scalloped edges really what I want to wear? The fact that I designed and knit it myself would go a long way towards my wearing it, for sure. But the fit would have to be good, too.

See, I've hit this wall of uncertainty. I'm not willing to rip out the work but I'm not sure I'm motivated to go forward.

The thing is, if I am going to try to finish this, now is the time of year to do so.