Shhhhh....

It's resting.

It's had a very tumultuous weekend.

Things were going so well. The sweater was great. When I divided for the yoke, I hadn't counted my stitches since the cast-on...but I was pleased and surprised to have the right number. Then both sleeves went well, again ending with the right number of stitches. I attached the sleeves -- something I had been very nervous about -- with no problems. I was knitting and knitting, and my raglan shaping looked great. I started thinking that maybe I was good at this. Maybe I'm no longer the mistake-prone novice who needs to count her stitches after every row because sometimes new ones appear mysteriously, while sometimes others disappear. Maybe I've developed some skill. Maybe all of my little experiments in knitting without looking had helped me acquire a feel for the process. Maybe it's not ridiculous that I'm having visions of soon attempting fair isle, entrelac, and lace.

I suppose it started to go downhill when I realized that I might run out of yarn. I started knitting faster and faster, eager to see what would happen. I guess I got a little sloppy. At one point I noticed I'd missed one decrease several rows back. I examined the area, and it wasn't the least bit noticeable. But with my new realization that perfection might be a possibility, I decided to "fix" it. I made my first attempt, with many more stitches coming undone than I'd planned. I struggled for awhile, but eventually got all the stitches worked out and back on the needles. I counted my stitches. I had too few. I'd done an extra decrease. I went back in, struggled, and managed to fix it. But then all the stitches in that area looked really bad. They were all too loose, showing evidence of all my fiddling around. So I kept trying to move the extra yarn to the tighter area to even out the tension, but it kept looking worse and worse. Many times I gave up, thinking it looked fine, and went back to the knitting. But I kept coming back to the botched area and trying more and more desperately to fix it, exacerbating the problem each time. I finished all the knitting and was even sewing down the neck (still stopping to go back and attack the loose stitches in the botched section every little bit). But then more disaster hit and a bunch of stitches fell of the needle and I couldn't get them back on right. Instead of ending up with a sweater that looked like it had been mauled by a vicious cat, I finally gave in and unravelled the last 15 rows or so...and managed to get them all back on the needles. (speaking of cat-mauling, there was an incident with some of the yarn earlier, which might actually be when the sweater started to veer off course)

I've got to set it aside for awhile, though. The sweater and I are both very tired from our wrestling match.

Turns out I didn't need to worry about running out of yarn. This is what I'll have left over after I finish the neck.