Who knew???

Who knew that amidst all my facetious talk of a faithful readership, I actually had one?

Yes, it's been a while. Babies have been born (and bunny hats still not finished :P), more greenish-bluish yarn purchased (oh, like that's any big surprise...), Mermaid's Hair creeping along like a fricken snail.

I've been very busy due to a few factors. in particular, grad school is coming up in the fall, so I'm stressing a bit about getting my ducks in a row. I've already gained my first sunburn of the season on the back porch of lakeside Fibers, though, which has proven a welcome relief. (Knitting outside, not the sunburn. Silly.)

I've been plugging away doggedly at my Noro sweater for my mom. Yes, folks, it's true: I said I'd start something, and I actually did. So I've got the fronts and back finished, and am now maybe a quarter of the way through my first sleeve. Following the sleeves, I've got two button bands that actually curve around to the back, topped off with a collar. Now, I'm not sure what that collar will end up looking like since I'm not overly fond of the one they have on it, so maybe I'll just do one ginormous button band and make it sort of self-collaring.



(No, I'm not making the matching skirt. That might be a bit much, even for my mom.)

This sweater is GORGEOUS. I'm making it in some sort of green/blue/deep reddish brown/gray colorway. I love how I can get motivated to knit more quickly by following the color changes. "Come on, green!" "Okay, blue, haven't seen you for a while... just a few more yards!" (Yes indeed; I'm a big, big geek.)

Unfortunately, some weird stuff has gone on. Here's my diagram of the sweater's construction:



So you can see how the unique construction curves around to turn the back into the fronts. Ingenious, no? Well, somehow that armhole on the back is about 15 rows below the armhole on the front. And it ISN'T MY FAULT. The front calls for 55 rows of stockinette, while the back calls for 42ish. I've looked all over for errata and find myself at a loss.

Eventually the only thing I could do was to cart myself out to the Sow's Ear and ask a helpful lady to pull and prod it to see if it would SOMEHOW go together. I mean, really. How is that possibly supposed to match up? It's not short rows or anything to accommodate ample frontage (though I've got a good seven inches on my mom, at the very least... oy...). Still, I was assured that it will turn out okay in the end.

I remain skeptical.

I think I will have the helpful lady sew it up for me. Normally, I'm all for doing it myself to learn, but wouldn't you know it -- for my first completed sweater, I've chosen something in which the seams are completely cockamamie. The helpful lady in question is actually a friend of my mom's, so maybe we can just stand my mom up on a box and tack it onto her like a dummy. Yeah, that's the ticket!