War of the Worlds

No, this post isn't about Tom Cruise. It is, however, about UFO's. We'd better call Orson Welles because it appears that we are being attacked by Martians. Either that or I have decided to resurrect one of those soul-crushing long-abandoned projects, the dreaded Brioche Vest:

The story of the Brioche Vest is as follows. I decided to knit my husband a vest. I bought the yarn to the tune of around $100 (I figured he works hard and pays for almost all of my yarn), and I commenced work. It was possibly the most boring project I've ever worked on. Its only saving grace is that it had no sleeves. That saving grace should be balanced against the fact that all of that edging had to be knit separately and sewn on. Yup, that's right. That includes around the armholes, up the front and around the neck. To make matters worse, I had to totally redo one of the armholes because I had bought an additional ball of yarn from a different dye lot and it was completely different in every way - color, texture - everything! Well, finally, one day, I finished it. I asked Joe to try it on, and it turns out that he didn't like the way the armholes fit. Ugh!! Perhaps you can see the problem in the picture. The one on the right doesn't match the one on the left - it's bigger - and he likes the way the one on the right looks. So, it has languished on our coffee table for months, a constant reminder that I've NEVER finished a sweater for him. He's asked about it several times and expressed his complete lack of faith that I'll never finish it, so I figured, since our anniversary is next week, I would surprise him by finishing it. I must be stealthy, however. I'll block it at my mom's and completely shock him to death. Deadline: January 11.

I've also made a lot of progress on Picovoli. I'm doing the Knitalong over at the Sexy Knitters Club, but it appears that I am only one of two people who has decided to participate, so it's not much fun right now. So, I'll post my photos here until it gets more active over there. It's a fast project and it's not a fast project. It's slow because you can work on it for a few hours and only have a couple of inches to show for it, but then you realize that you're doing the front, the back, the sleeves, the seaming and the edging all at the same. There will be virtually no finishing on this project except weaving in ends and finishing the picot edging (this part remains somewhat of a mystery to me). Yesterday, I got up some courage and added bust shaping. I was very skeptical because I was certain that all of the instructions I had found were wrong, but I forged onward. I should have done it on a swatch first because my wrap and turns were a sloppy at first, and since I was knitting from the top down, while all of my instructions were from the bottom up, I had to make some modifications. When I finished, I threaded a needle through my stitches and tried it on and, abracadabra, I had bust ease. It was amazing! I followed the instructions for a C cup because I didn't want it to be loose, even though I'm a D-cup (yeah, I know - Vavoom!). I figure that, since I have never added bust ease, even a little is an improvement. When I tried it on I realized that D-cup shaping would probably work well for other projects, but I'm keeping it as is for this project. I think it will really help with the fit.

On New Year's Day, I taught my sister-in-law how to knit. She took to it quite quickly and was excited to get home and continue knitting. I saw her last night for dinner, and she was completely distraught because she had made a mistake when I wasn't around and tried to fix it. I guess it just became a disaster and she tore it out in frustration and told my brother that she was too stupid to knit and would never knit again. Luckily, I saw her after she calmed down and got her back on track. Did others out there have trouble when they first started? I never had a "I'm quitting!" moment because I had J here for a week when I learned and she could fix my mistakes, but I've certainly had my share of frustrations, tears and almost tears. I'd LOVE to hear your stories and maybe I can pass them on to her and make her feel better.