So I did a lot of knitting yesterday while watching baseball with Mr. B. His team won; all is well. Except, perhaps, with my knitting. Yep, the easy v-neck raglan is turning mutinous. It’s my fault, really. I got impatient with the ribbing around the body and quit a bit early, even though I wanted a nice wide band of 2 x 2 ribbing around the bottom. I was just so excited to almost have a sweater … and I didn’t want a really long sweater since I knew it was already w – i – d – e. And I was basing my measurements not so much on the pattern as on one of my very favorite sweaters. So this one is a bit short, not bad, just a tiny bit shorter than I might have wanted in an ideal world. But okay. Just a little short. The gauge gods were obviously against me, though, because my sleeves have to be much wider than suggested in the pattern — okay, a lot wider — as row gauge turned out to be important. Okay. Wide sleeves, a bit short. I can deal. It’s my first sweater. Flaming pain in my arse, indeed.
Doesn’t it look innocent? Nope. A cobra coiled to strike.
But I kept on knitting. It was a slow game and I certainly didn’t want to correct any tests. So here I am at the cuff ribbing. And things are a bit funky. Not as funky as the ribbing that led to my twisted stitches discovery, but decidedly amateurish. 
I thought about ripping back and re-knitting the cuff and hem ribbing, but I just don’t know if I’m up for that. I thought perhaps switching to a smaller needle would help, but I don’t want the ribbing to hug too much, if that makes sense. I think I’ll end up just keeping it as is; a monument to my growing pains or some such.
According to Montse Stanley’s ginormous Knitter’s Handbook [wonderful!] — which I bought today in hopes of finding a solution to my ugly ribbing — it’s a problem of control. And I have noticed that I stretch the yarn too much when switching from knit to purl.
[Speaking of knitting books, where did all of the new ones come from?! I placed a mammoth order this afternoon ... so much fun stuff to look at.]
I think I’m just going to let the sweater alone for a day or two, maybe start something quick and simple, and think out what I want to do. It’s probably just exam-paranoia talking.
