Dear baby

Welcome to Dumpsville. Population: you.

At some point in history, I stumbled upon the Lupe cardigan, by Laura Zukaite. Unfortunately, I no longer have a record of when I added it to my queue, because I created a project page when I started it, and zapped the queue entry into oblivion when I did so. Note that Rav functionality doesn't force this - I opted to do it myself, as part of my queue management strategy. The pattern apparently was published in September 2015, so we know it hasn't been hanging around in my headspace for longer than six years. I would imagine I found it at some point in 2016, maybe even 2017 - I'm not exactly on the leading edge of tracking pattern releases.

That back panel, though. It's incredibly eye-catching to begin with, with that open cable detail running down the centre, and since it's a free pattern, I opened it up to see how it was accomplished, and once I skimmed through the instructions, I wanted to try it.

This pattern has a huge yardage ask - 1638 yards for the smallest size, to fit a 30" bust - and I'm not in the habit of stashing batches of yarn with that much yardage. But. As it turns out, I picked up a couple of batches of Little Knits Serica - batches that had 1600 yards in them. Yes, that's still short, especially if I wanted to make the 34" size, as the smallest would be too small, but I figured I could probably finagle something. After all, the fronts, as written, were bigger and danglier than I would like, so I thought I could recoup some yardage by downsizing the fronts.

So I cast on in June 2018 and worked my way through a sleeve. The initial strategy was to do a sleeve as a swatch of sorts, to make sure my gauge wasn't way out of whack, and to also get one of the sleeves done, to avoid ending up in that place where all I have left to do are sleeves. The idea of the sleeve-as-a-swatch fell apart pretty quickly, as the sleeve is worked in a stitch pattern that isn't used for the other pieces, but I kept at it anyway, since I'd already cast on before figuring that part out. Once that first sleeve was done, I moved on to the main attraction: the back.

Working that back panel was seriously fun. Basically, you work the two side halves of the back panel separately but simultaneously, with regular cable crosses connecting them. Normally I'm not keen on having two working yarns attached to a given piece at the same time, but this one didn't bother me - I guess the novelty of the construction method made the additional effort worthwhile? It certainly wasn't a portable project though!

Once the back was completed, I smiled at it in satisfaction, and then decided to start one of the fronts. In part because I still didn't feel like tackling the second sleeve, but also as a bit of a yardage check - I wanted to be sure I would have enough to complete the sweater. I did some monkeying to trim down the fronts a bit, cast on for one, and started knitting.

And then I sort of stalled out. Part of the issue was certainly having to spend more time doing things like working instead of knitting, but I still knit throughout the year, so that's not entirely to blame. The problem is I was knitting other things. Socks for me, socks for my sister, sweaters for my sister, other sweaters for me. I was avoiding putting more time into this sweater. At first, I chalked this up to just being dazzled by those other things, being my usual magpie self and getting distracted by something new. (New is very hard to resist.)

Last year, I finally picked up that started front piece again, and put in some time, and nearly completed it, but then put it down again, seemingly for no good reason. I've been thinking about that for the past week or so, wondering why I'm dragging my feet so much on this sweater.

I think it's because I've become increasingly certain that I would not wear this sweater much. The styling is just not really me. Maybe it's due to the effect the past year in lockdown has had on my sense of dress, maybe it's because of my ever-advancing age, maybe it's just that things change. I'm finding it difficult to find the right words to express the mismatch I'm feeling when I imagine that sweater on me. It's an intriguing knit, and a lovely sweater. But, it would seem, not for me.

So I'm calling for a do-over. A mulligan. I've taken a picture of the existing pieces, such as they are, and over the next few days, the yarn will be reclaimed, and eventually, it will become a sweater that I can see myself wearing.

Sorry, Lupe. We're just not meant for each other.