So, I’m making Rowan’s (pattern company, not either one of my wonderful friends by that name–the ongoing trend of confiscating our names and using them for consumer products must end now  . .  .  where was I) Beau, for my charming husband Scott.  I had some gauge work to do, and some math, because the Rowan yarn designated in the pattern is no more, and the yarn Scott picked is Elann’s wonderful Peruvian Pure Alpaca (in Walnut), a considerably thinner yarn.  So I dutifully swatched on a variety of needle sizes, but then screwed up the math the first time around.  I noticed a few inches in, frogged, and all seemed remedied.  No problem, right?  Lovely yarn, fantastic recipient, knitting is its own reward, blah blah blah.

By that point, I wasn’t so much consulting the pattern, because the pattern made me forget my numbers and use Rowan’s.  I cast on again using my corrected math and knit and knit and knit on what I supposed was the pattern.  Until I thought I was almost to the point where things needed to change for the sleeves and decided it was time to consult the pattern. 

And I noticed that only the top of the sweater is meant to be in the full-on, basket-weave pattern.  The bulk of the sweater is meant to be in 10×10 vertical stripes.  Which I knew at the outset but forgot because Rowan-the-pattern-company, she makes the crappy charts and the tenebrous directions, and there was math confusion to contend with there at the outset.  Dag nabbit. 

So what would a superior knitter do?  Scott is a slender guy, so a sweater worked entirely in the basket weave will not make him look lumpy or odd.  If I ask him, he’ll insist that I keep going, damn the torpedoes and the pattern, et cetera et cetera.  But  . . . the orignal pattern’s concept of stripes melding into the basket weave is downright elegant . . . sigh.

While you’re thinking on what you would do, take a look at just a tiny bit of the fun we had last weekend out in the pineywoods: tater gun fun.  There is a fair amount of cussing, and bit of footage of Kelby with a cut finger, but it’s not too greusome and I promise he is all better now, though a banjo-picking finger was harmed.  Otherwise, good times.  Goooooood tiiiiiiiimes.

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