It Almost Beat Me

So, remember how I said I was new to knitting.  Yeah ... apparently the pattern I picked doesn't lend itself well to new.  I managed to finish the back (yay!) and in spite of a weird little bind-off issue, it looks pretty much like I imagine a back should look.  I felt so proud.  I have one third of a cardigan!  I cast on some stitches and jumped head first into the front side of the sweater.  And stared at the pattern.  Worked it a few times, didn't understand what it was telling me to do ... lace patterns are unpleasant and difficult, I've decided ... did my best to figure it out, finished one full row and then put it down in quiet frustration.

A few days went by, and my darling hubby eyed my bag of yarn and asked how it was going.  What a sweet man to even recognize that I was working on something in the first place!  I rolled my eyes, sighed loudly and said, and I quote ... "The pattern is stupid and probably wrong.  I'm taking a break from it."

Now, my husband knows me well enough to recognize what "I'm taking a break" means.  It means, this will sit by the couch for a bit, then get moved to a chair, where it will be re-moved and shifted as it gets in the way of other projects I start and eventually be relegated into the black hole that is my craft room.  Left to live out it's unfinished existence next to the unfinished pajama bottoms, unfinished hemming projects and unfinished potpourri satchels.  Unfinished.  Are you sensing a pattern?

Luckily, again, my husband knows me.  And he knows I'm trying to turn over a new leaf and actually finish a project.  And, as luck would have it, he knows someone who is an expert knitter!  She even goes to knitting conventions!  And, she's nice.  So he asked if she could help me.  She said yes!

So, last Saturday, in between a neighborhood cleanup and a family dinner, I encroached on her precious time (she has a little one, and was willing to let me come during his nap time!  Didn't I say she was nice!) and she helped me.  And boy, did she help me!  She didn't even laugh when I told her how many times I restarted the pattern, didn't chuckle at all when I asked her how to do even the simplest of techniques ... SSK - I just kept dropping it.  And, even when I was showing her how I worked the pattern, and she noticed that I wasn't even knitting in the normal way (self-taught leaves a lot of room for error), she only studied my work and said nicely, "I'm really surprised that you were able to make this look right without actually doing it right!"  She helped fix my knitting technique (which, by the way, explains why I couldn't do a SSK in the first place) and then explained what to do within the pattern.  The whole pattern!  She even lent me a knitting book.  What a sweetie!  When I'm a pro at knitting, I will be just as helpful and nice to the newbies!

So, I am once again knitting like the wind, and this time in the correct way (I totally own SSK now).  Looks like this project may have narrowly escaped the dooming clutches of the unfinished pile and might have a home in my closet after all!

And look, look at the pretty chevrons (I'm probably not spelling that right, but I'm not in the mood to look it up).  See how nice that will look on me!  Just use your imagination, that's what I'm doing!