Week 36: 14-20 September 2009

So there we are. Despite spending more than half of the last week in bed, knocked out by this blasted cold which is proving rather stubborn to shift, I was still able to remain upright long enough to finish the gansey, like a wounded gunfighter in a spaghetti western who raises himself up off the floor long enough to take down his opponent before collapsing himself in a blaze of Ennio Morricone.

So, the question is, now it’s done, how do I feel about it? And the answer is, I’m not sure. Let me explain. First of all, the most obvious flaw is the sleeves, for which I cast on too many stitches. I knew I’d done this the first time, but somehow it didn’t look too bad until I’d finished the pattern section – then I realised just how baggy they were going to be. I decided to carry on, like a First World War general who thinks that one more push will break the enemy line, but it was apparent as soon as I cast on the second sleeve that it wasn’t going to work (you can see the ripples down by the gusset where I had to cram in just too many stitches). Well, fair enough. I can always just rip out the sleeves and do them properly.

But then there’s the pattern, which doesn’t quite work and, to be fair, never did really. (Though to be fair some of the pictures do show it resembling Henry Freeman’s pattern, so not a total failure.) Is it therefore worth the trouble to spend 2-3 months reworking the sleeves? And then there’s the fit – I’m not saying it’s tight across the midriff, but I think I can see a new market opening up for ganseys that act as corsets. When I put it on my thighs get bigger to accommodate parts of my lower intestine. (Oh, I just had a disturbing thought – maybe those pictures of knitted fishermen’s socks and drawers aren’t working wear after all, but are – the horror – fishermen’s lingerie? I think Victoria’s Secret could be missing a trick here…)

Anyway, I know it hasn’t been washed and blocked yet, but either it”s the scrawny yarn, or, more likely, I just knit it to a tighter gauge (something I have a tendency to do with plain knitting as opposed to patterned), but it’s definitely a bit smaller than I’d planned. Oh, and I don’t like the garter stitch bit at the bottom, which flops around like a cat-flap in a strong breeze. Other than that, it’s fine!

So I’m seriously tempted to just rip the whole thing out and file it under experience – after all, it served its purpose and kept me occupied while I moved up here to Edinburgh, with all the stresses and strains that that entailed, so I’m really not complaining. I could always delete the last 6 months’ worth of blogs and then pretend the cat ate it; the only problem being, our cat would never be able to keep it down, and in any case, I dare say ganseys are meant to be worn externally. (I toyed with turning it into a cat blanket, now winter is approaching, but it’s so heavy, and our cat is so old, I don’t think she’d have the strength to escape once she was placed inside it.)

So, as I said at the beginning, there we are. What to do? My best bet is to find a skinny person with very fat arms who feels the cold. Popeye would be good, if anyone knows his address.

Finally, after the success of last week’s rather lame swatch joke, I have now decided to record an album of Christmas favourites on a similar theme, starting with the schoolboys’ favourite, “While shepherds swatched their socks by night…”  Ay thangyou, ladees an’ gennelmun.