Not all like shit. Yet.

Now, while I have successfully knit a sweater, as evidenced by that labor for Bubba, I'm still vuuuuurrrry skeptical about my ability to execute a sweater by way of needles and yarn.

Not that I'm executing it any other way, like by way of lunch meat or wood carving, but you know.

I'm a self-skeptic. Especially when it comes to sweaters and especially more when it comes to a sweater that is not a product of an EXTREMELY closely followed pattern, but rather an invention from my own pea brain.

And we know the crazy crap that goes on in my pea brain. It's not like I shouldn't be all skeptical because, yikes.

I bet something crazy was in my head at this moment. It might have involved wood carving.

But since I was able to pull off the Leaf Tshirt back at my 500th post without so much as a whine, I let myself use it as a basis for a perfect-for-me sweater invention. Or, rather, just an iteration done my moi which is much like iterations done by others on Ravelry but because I'm a tard and those people plainly are not, I call it an invention.

Gives it the weight I feel it deserves. Since I really shouldn't be inventing sweater patterns given my history with horseshit knitting.

HOWEVER, I'm currently taking liberties with this pattern in the following ways:

• I'm giving it long sleeves rather than capped ones
• I'm taking out the leaf pattern
• I'm making it longer
• I'm narrowing the waistline

I think that's it.

See, the first one came together so quickly and easily that I started thinking, "Hey. If this thing just had long sleeves I'd have myself, here, a fully legit sweater. For me. Imagine how I could redeem myself in my own eyes and believe again that I could knit sweater-like things. It could be great. I think I'll go have a cocktail to celebrate." And so on.

For, like, eight months apparently, I thought about this.

Because a few weeks ago an entry for, "Buy sweater yarn" appeared on my To Do list as if from nowhere.

OK, it came from my pen as I scribbled in my itty notebook while sitting in traffic, but still, it appeared there and when it did, I realized I'd been thinking about knitting this sweater for a long time since I had a color in mind and all of those changes I listed up there and I was already envisioning the outfit I'd wear with it and so on.

It was very specific, is what I'm saying, which is how I know my pea brain was thinking about it even if the rest of me was blissfully unawares.

And now, I've gotten past the hard part (the increases, which really aren't hard at all) and just have to keep going, tucking in the waist here and adding on some sleeves there before VOILA a sweater appears on my body.

Like magic? Perhaps.

The real magic is something else though - I learned A Thing.

Oh yes, the learning goes on!

Like, last time, when I was knitting that sweater for Bubba and learned The Thing called, Math, and then The Thing called, Labeling, and it made my world of knitting all new and fresh again? Yeah, like that.

Well, this The Thing is called, I Knit Loosely.

Yeah, it doesn't sound impressive like Math does, but I promise you, it's no less crucial. (Yes, I just said math was crucial. And I'll ask you not to tell my father.)

The Thing called, I Knit Loosely, is important to understand because all along I've been just using the recommended needle size for yarn and in patterns and it never quite does the trick. My knitting comes out too loose.

Like, I feel like it should be a tighter weave. And if I ever EVER knit a fucking gauge swatch, I would have realized a super way long time ago that OH I KNIT LOOSELY and should always take my needle size down at least one notch.

And, well, I should probably always knit a gauge swatch, but I'm not ready to admit that to myself because I'm pretty sure I've declared my foregoing of gauge swatches and I can't be making a big old liar out of myself just right here in print even though I think I just did.

Whoopsies!

Anyway, through the knitting of a gauge swatch (because of my paranoia in fucking up a sweater, I gave in and made one), I realized that WHOA I totally need to ratchet down my needle size to get the gauge right.

And using The New Thing I Learned: I Knit Loosely, I will be able to start out with a better guess in needle sizes at the outset of any gauge swatch knitting so that I don't have to, say, knit the swatch with size 7 needles and then see hugeness, then switch to 6s and see still hugeness until finally getting down to proper 5s and be, like, oh that's it right there.

Do you see what I'm saying here? You see. It's a time saver. And a screaming-my-ass-off-using-all-my-swears saver.

So, me and The Thing are going to get onto the bust part of this sweater shortly (which will HAha be the biggest part of the sweater - thanks for making your own quiet jokes here) and maybe in some reasonable amount of time a sweater will appear on my body as though by magic.

Or by Math.

WOULDN'T THAT BE THE WORST? IF MATH WERE MAGIC? Ugh. Let's never speak of this again.