Goals for 2006. And 2007. And...

I have before me an entertaining little document entitled "Sweaters, 2006" that I must have written while pregnant, because I don't remember writing it even though it's in my handwriting(much of my pregnancy is a fog. It's better that way). Unearthed while shoveling out my home office, I've been giggling over it for a couple days now and figured I should share. I guess it's a list of sweaters I wanted to knit this year.

For your amusement, I offer my goal list:


This is "Innsvinget jakke med broderi" from "Norsk Strikkedesign". (Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM one of Those Maniacs who buy those books.) It's a steeked circular knit, six stitches to the inch on size five needles. Hip length, I'd have to fix the freaky collar, every darn stitch is accounted for on the chart (you should see it, it's like a puzzle). This would only take me, oh, three months to knit. If I had all the time in the world and undivided attention to give it. I've already got the yarn for it, so I'm going to knit this sometime. But probably not this year.

Second, "Turoe" by Alice Starmore, found in her "Celtic Collection" book. (I just did a search on 'Turoe' in an attempt to find a photo. No joy, but the original stone that inspired the sweater is DARN cool looking.) It's the cream, tan, and blue free-form spirals. In intarsia. At five and a half stitches to the inch. Most, if not all, of the yarns are discontinued, so I'd have to spend at least a month figuring out what to substute (and how to afford it), before I even got started knitting. And of course Ms Starmore would have me flogged for not using the right yarn, messing with her colors, and mentioning her name on the internet.

Next on the list, "Dragon Jacket". This is an ancient pattern copied for later knitting. (yes, copied, have me put in chains for copyright infringement. If I could by the book, I would. It's out of print. The copy is from the library and I swear I haven't sold it to anyone.) It's been going on twenty years that I've had this pattern, and we're still waiting for 'later'. I think later's gonna be later than this. It's two multi-colored dragons (mostly blues - each scale is a different color) in intarsia, swirling all over a cardigan. In cotton, at about eight stitches to the inch, on size three needles. In cotton. Intarsia. Did I mention the cotton intarsia?

We have a Kaffe Fassett in the lineup (pipe dream? hormone induced fantasy?): The Geometric Star jacket from "Glorious Knitting". That's the one with the stranded-color hexagons and the six-pointed stars in two colors? All mostly in blue? Yeah. It's at four and a half stitches to the inch on size nine needles, so in that respect it's rational, but there's no yarn pack, half the yarns are discontinued, and I can't afford Rowan anyway, so it'd take me at least a year just to accumulate the yarn before casting on. Other than that, this one is almost do-able.

Last in this little list - that's right, I only planned to knit five sweaters this year, what would I do with my extra time? - is the "Weeping Sun and Moon" sweater from "Meg Swansen's Knitting". If you haven't seen it, it's stranded color with a sun on the front and a moon on the back. The charts are almost as big as the sweater (Four pages of the book for the front; another four pages for the back) and every stinkin' stitch is charted with absolutely no repeats. But it's a beautiful sweater. Five stitches to the inch, so it's almost possible except for being too afraid to look away from the chart for ten seconds. You'd have to knit it with a ruler, a highlighter, and a bunch of post it notes.

Oh, and did I mention the OTHER project I've got going?

That's right, I've got a FIVE MONTH OLD BABY to take care of! Oh yeah, plenty of time for knitting, especially that color-stranded stuff that you have to pay attention to every minute.

I don't REMEMBER smoking crack while I was pregnant... but I can't believe hormones alone made me this delusional. Strange. Very strange.