Mad Hair Day

I’m having a blue sort of day. Blue everywhere. Blue language, blue knitting, blue mood and blue skies with melting clouds and onshore breezes which tousle the heads of the gum trees. This is a blue chunky-ish cardi for my skinny sister who can carry off over-sized long-length chunky hooded cardigans with belts and bell sleeves. Me, I’d look like I was wearing a dressing gown. But she’ll look gorgeous – at least, she would if it weren’t for the near certainty that I’m going to run out of yarn.

Of course, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was wildly flattered to be ASKED to knit something (hitherto occupying the niche for Mad-Auntie-Who-Knits in our family) and happily set to planning a long casual cardi with tie belt and hood. I planned the size, had some acrylic yarn (she wants machine washable and cheap, I had this in the stash with nothing planned for it) and had dreams of cables and textures and, just for once, a figure (hers, not mine) to carry them off. This is a very plain yarn from Sirdar, a darkish wedgewood blue slightly thicker than a British double knit. With my lovely Denise set (perfect for top-down, no-seams raglan) I was all set to go. I swatched and loved the cables. I congratulated myself on side-stepping all evil knitting vibes by making the Mighty Magical Swatch which is the talisman against all yarny disaster. I cast on provisionally for the neckline (I can add the hood later from the cast-on stitches- no sewing, Yay!) I completely ignored all the planned cables (which looked so lovely and, as less is not more when lovely cables are concerned, I added many many more) and knit. And frogged. And cast on again. And knit. And ignored the little voice in my head urging me to re-swatch the even-more-newly planned re-vamped cables. And frogged. And opened a bottle of something potent. And cast on AGAIN and, this is the truly wondrous bit, knit… knowing full well what had happened before but STILL ignoring all the screaming voices in my head which howled “Swatch, you silly bint!” Now there’s no prizes for guessing what happened next. In fact, if there is anyone out there who can’t guess then they must be as deluded as I was myself. That is, if there is anybody out there at all… Hello? Anyone?

So. Here it is. Enormous cardi version 6. Yes, Six. Only four are detailed above. Versions 4 and 5 are too painful to mention. There was wine, there was tears. There was airborne knitting and much foul language.

You might notice that there are no cables. I can’t bear them. I never want to see another cable (well, this month, anyway) and don’t speak of moss stitch. After all the angst, the writhing, the tantrums and the general flinging-about, my skinny sister uttered the stupefying words “Actually, I think I’d prefer it plain.”

Here it is. Miles and miles of plain stockingette. I’ve ten balls of the stuff and it took five to get from neck to armpit. What are the chances of a mid-thigh body and long knuckle-length sleeves with a hood? Yep, that’s what I thought. Bugger.