Philosopher's Sweater

This sweater was not on my knitting agenda:

But it has been in my knitting line-up for...ummm...a very long time. More than three years. I don't hate this sweater. I like it, really, I do. I love the colors. I love that I can now knit with two hands, it's so knitterly. I even like the rustic, itchy yarn with all the straw bits left in. I can even imagine that the end product, and there will be an end product, will be useful under my coat on very cold days, or as a jacket on 50 degree days like today.

But I am nothing if not a fickle knitter. Other sweaters, shawls, frick and frack have come between us. I was quite prepared to allow the Philospher to languish in my basement. Until someone, let's call her Stef! (the-weaving-guru) started knitting one. And hating every blasted second of it. Despite my encouragement to rip it out, she soldiers on. And asks me questions. And not only does she not rip her's out, she has goaded me into finishing mine. And set a somewhat arbitrary deadline: mid-April. At which time we will take scissors to them and have either cardigans, or a pile of useless yarn. I could go either way. Six inches in 2 to 3 weeks. It could happen. Or not.

The irritating thing, aside from being brainwashed into finishing the stupid sweater, is that Philosopher's Wool includes only the most rudimentary knitting instructions in their kits. The instructions for the neckline go something like this: "when you are ready to start the neckline, we recommend that you knit back and forth; alternatively you could sew a steek and cut the neck out. Whichever you prefer." If you don't knit (and you've made it this far), you may not notice that as far as instructions go, those are pretty...what's the word I'm looking for? No Stef! one that my mother can read without plotzing. Never mind. They're shitty. That's what they are. Shitty. And non-existent. The folks at Philosopher's either don't know how to write patterns (in which case they might consider hiring someone who can), or they really really trust knitters to figure out what needs to be done on their own. A little warning might have been nice.