Making it up as I wait in line

One reason I try to make up my own sweater ideas is that I can't always find exactly what I have in mind in a pattern. Not that they don't exist out there, but even with the power of Ravelry, I can't always find them, and I'm certainly too impatient to keep hunting until I find The One. Besides, I generally alter patterns in some way anyhow. And this way, I can go, "yarn first, then pattern," and since I buy faster than I knit, well, there you go.

Ha. It sounds as though I know what I'm doing. I don't; it's just that this is the way my person leans. Doing otherwise would be like doing bonsai: possible, but a lot of work.

At any rate, the sweater that's fun to wear but a bear to knit now has one shoulder:


I tried, I really really tried, to make this a seamless saddle-shoulder. I did two or three iterations of picking up the stitches along the fronts and backs, only to find that I had picked up different numbers on each side; that preloading the stitches to be picked up on needles felt like wrestling a catatonic octopus ; that finally what I wanted wasn't a purist "no seams allowed here!" sweater, but one with a saddle I liked.

Bowing to the inevitable, I knit a saddle, seamed it in, then proceeded to do some sort of knit back and forth cap for a few rows, then joined in the round, discovered I had picked up enough stitches for a nice sleeve cap but too many for an arm, and while standing in line to see Mortified in the city with my sister and some friends, figured that I could create a little reverse-gusset by placing markers on each side of some underarm stitches and decreasing them as I went down the sleeve.

And it worked! Easy-peasy lemon squeezy, as they say. Click for a sort of gussety close-up.


So now I'm just chugging along, enjoying myself. That is, until I get either to the end of this sleeve and have to try out my stylish idea and see if it makes me look like a dork, or love it and then just have to knit a. whole. other. sleeve. Not to mention something around the neck, I guess. Also, not to mention that "counting to three" is still a skill I'm struggling with. I just noticed two purl stitches lurking down in some knit ribs. Thank goodness for crochet hooks!

Either way, I want to get it done and out of the way, to make mental room for the gloves I just swatched for. Yessiree Bob, 14 stitches to the inch and I just can't wait.