Walk Before You Run

Okay, first of all, I'm not posting pictures today. I know, I know, yarn/knitting porn is the only reason any of us really reads a knitting blog, but...well, the hassle involved in me getting pictures onto the net to post them here is just more trouble than its worth to me right now. On the other hand, if I don't feel as much pressure to include pictures in every single post, I'm much more likely to post more.

So here's the deal: I'm going to post more often. Really. But I very likely will not have much posted porn while doing so.

That said, I've realized lately that, aside from raglans, I have virtually no idea how to do shoulder shaping. I taught myself to knit, and have rarely followed a pattern in my life, so my first instinct wasn't to find a pattern to knit. No, my first instinct was to just start a sweater that would require set-in shoulders and see what happened.

It didn't go well. In construction, I had to frog the shoulder area four times, because I had this crazy idea that I would knit the sleeves in with the shoulders and therefore not seam anything. The first four attempts created something that either did not actually enable me to put the sweater on, or were so hideous that no amount of justification could make it look right.

After the fourth attempt, though, I had something that was close. In fact, it looked pretty much perfect...if I gave the sleeves a pretty good yank down and then didn't raise my shoulders or move my arms or, you know, breathe. If I did any of those things, the point at the top of the shoulder would not fall back down again, and I was left with these pointy, horn-like objects on the backs of my shoulders.

No, unfortunately, I do not have pictures. In complete denial that there was anything wrong with the sweater, I wore it to class one day. It took almost the entire day before I admitted defeat, but once I got home, I ripped off the sweater and frogged the shoulders completely. There wasn't time for pictures...if I'd stopped to take one, I might have lost momentum and allowed myself to believe that it still looked okay.

It didn't. It really didn't. And now I'm going to do it right.

To that end, I'm trying to knit a sweater from a pattern first. Something to give me an idea of how to, well, do it right. Of course, the pattern I picked was written for machine knitting, but the important parts are there and I can figure out the rest.

Also, I need to name the damn thing. I think it would be much more cooperative if I addressed it by name rather than "that sweater I keep &%^*ing up on".