After long deliberation about what sweater I should knit for myself to put an official end to the gift knitting season, I chose to make Bless in the Rowan Cork I received in my subscriber gift packet last year. (NOTE: I bought four more balls, because Bless calls for 8 in total.) I decided that what I really needed was some instant gratification and knitting a stockinette cardigan on US11's was going to be just that. Then I swatched. Well, I didn't like the fabric on Us11's, so I went down to US10 1/2's. Then I didn't like the edging (three rows garter stitch followed by several rows of moss stitch), so I decided to do ribbing instead. I also wanted to add some waist shaping, so I picked out another pattern in the Cork book to crib those numbers from. Okay, finally, the preparations were done. I sat down and blissfully knit a bit.

And it's too small. I'd heard that Cork grows a bit with a wash and wear, and I did see a little expansion in the swatch that I wetted, so although I was knitting the yarn at a slightly smaller gauge, I hadn't changed the pattern size that I was knitting. But this was really way too small. Rather than accept my own responsibility for this mistake, I punished the pattern by putting it back in the pattern library and immediately finding something else. Something I'd be willing to go through all these trials for. Something like the Lace leaf pullover from Loop-d-Loop. (I hope you saw Julia's incredible version of this sweater!) Of course the Cork yarn isn't anywhere near as bulky as the yarn called for in the pattern. And the pattern isn't anywhere near a simple as the Bless cardigan. But I was way past instant gratification on this project, so I pulled out the calculator and started reworking the numbers. New Year's knitting has gotten me this far.

It's coming out much better than I had expected. Frankly, I'd expected it to be too small again. Luckily, knitpal Shannon was with me as I knit most of this to say "no it isn't!" everytime I whined that it was coming out too small. I slipped a lifeline in and tried it on and it is indeed big enough. Phew! Another nice surprise is how the lace leaf detail came out so much smaller in this gauge. I never did quite understand the chunky sweater with openwork thing. Seems like big holes would defeat the purpose of having a big bulky sweater. Doing the pattern in this "small" gauge (I'm still at 3.5 stitches to the inch!) has made the leaves into an almost dainty and delicate detail.

More lace leaf pullover knitting.

The first sleeve and it's - wait for it - too small. It barely fits around my wrist. And I've got small wrists, people. I think I may have gotten confused when I was doing my math as to which size I was working up. Cause the math must be right. It has to be. (If you can't trust math, well, I don't know what you can rely on!) Just in case the yarn could make up for my error, I actually washed this piece. But I didn't see significant growth after drying, so it'll be ripped. I don't know what I was thinking anyway, following the sleeve shaping of the pattern. I like long, straight sleeves, especially for a sweater like this. And if I knit them straight, then there's no way they'll be too narrow at the wrist!

So it's back to the ball winder for more ripping. I'm gonna blame it all on the yarn. I'm enjoying knitting with the Cork so much that, I'll admit it, I keep knitting even when I'm feeling like the piece isn't coming out right. Bad Cork. I mean good Cork. Bad good Cork!

My lace leaf pullover is most definitely jinxed.

I finished sleeve number one (after having ripped it once already) and set about to knit the second one and get this sweater done in record time. It looks good enough.

But looks can be deceiving. Dunno what happened to my gauge, but with the same number of stitches and rows, it's much looser and floppier looking. Then there's the fact that the lace pattern on it is completely wrong.

It's perfectly lovely but - can you believe it? - I totally misunderstood the directions! I thought I was just supposed to do row one from the lace leaf chart. Didn't see the "lace pattern" listed there in the stitches section at the beginning. Doh! I actually kind of prefer this lace pattern. But I have to reknit the sleeve anyway. It just seems thick-headed to knit it "wrong" again on purpose.

And of course, the upper body is way too small.

Well, I think it is anyway. There is an outside possibility that it could be okay, but since it's constructed so oddly, who knows? I tried sewing in the good sleeve (which, it is clear now, is too long - so that's two sleeves to reknit) to see if the body will fit, but I've only got the front part of the body done. I'd really need to knit the whole front and back to see if it will be wide enough to cover my shoulders and be comfortable in the upper arm. Still, I know it's going to end up being too small. I know it.

So clearly, it's jinxed. I've actually already knit 7 of the 8 balls I have, but both sleeves are goners, as is, most likely, the upper body. Luckily, it's only taken me one week to get this far. If I can just bring myself to forgive the sweater and the knitter, I could still be done in record time!

Yes, I am officially done with the lace leaf pullover. It's not finished, but I'm done. I did actually knit every single piece at least once, some multiple times, and still only one of them is a keeper. So there's that. What really put the nail in the coffin though was seeing how the shoulders and sleeves fit together.

oh, it all looks lovely from a distance, doesn't it?

If you look closely, you'll see that there are smooth raglan-style decreases at the top of the body to make the shoulders. At this point the sweater is knit in the round. Then the body is divided into front and back sections and the sleeves are later sewn in with one or one half stitch going into the seam. After I sewed in the sleeve, I took a look at that little pucker where the stitches that were part of the body are brought into the seam and thought, "you know, sweater, I'm just not that into you." And I was done with it.

The same day, I happened to see fellow Knitsmith, Shireen, in one of my favorite of her knits, the cowl pullover from Stitch and Bitch. It took about five seconds for me to decide to rip everything and try to turn it into that.

knitting a new sleeve directly from the old sweater

Of course, I don't have enough of the Cork (that garter stitch is a yarn-hungry little beast!), but I found some more in a different dyelot at the semi-annual Wild & Wooly clearance sale that I'll probably use on the back. And I think I'll do the cowl neck in a different yarn entirely.

Unless the jinx returns.

Back to the cork sweater. I get two sleeves into plan b (let's review: plan a, the lace leaf pullover, was knit and rejected, then plan b, the cowl sweater from Stitch n Bitch, was begun), right so I'm two sleeves into plan b...

...and I decide, this isn't going to work either. I like the sleeves - isn't the shape cool?! - but it's just not going to look that good on me. I can tell. Too tight in the areas where I'm not too tight anymore, if you know what I mean. So I went back to the drawing board. This time, instead of asking what pattern I really, really want to knit, I thought, what pattern will really, really look good on me. I wore my sooty mango a few days later and had my answer. Introducing plan c, a mango sweater (it's actually a tank pattern from the all seasons cotton book) with sleeves and maybe a different neckline. I put the cowl sleeves aside (that's the plan b sweater, are you keeping up?) and started knitting the new back (plan c) from the old lower body portion of the lace leaf sweater (plan a, ahh remember the heady days of plan a?).

The cork may be jinxed, but I have to say that it's been very forgiving of my ripping and reknitting. I haven't had to reskein it or wash it and it's knitting up just as nicely as the first time around. At least there's that.