Friday, November 9, 2007

the sweater curse


maybe the sweater curse has nothing to do with the mechanics of your relationship, but maybe it has more to do with you're trying so hard to make sure its the most perfect garment ever in existance that everything seems to go wrong, or you're so hyper paranoid that it won't fit that it seems like nothing is right....and you get so frustrated about it and take it out on your bf then he dumps you even though he doesn't even know you're knitting him a sweater...
i just looked up what wikipedia has to say about the sweater curse, and it breaks it down into possible reasons why there might be a break up due to knitting a sweater....the main reason for the curse that i've heard most is this:
Catalyst for analyzing the relationship. Giving or receiving a significant gift such as a sweater may cause either the giver or receiver to evaluate the relationship. For example, the gift may seem too intimate, too domestic or too binding to the significant other. It can be seen as a signal that makes them realize that the relationship is not reciprocal, prompting them to end the relationship before it involves obligations.


now, i don't think this applies to our relationship....i mean, he had asked me once to knit him a sweater, and he loves the stuff i've knitted in the past...and we've talked about getting married, so, i don't think the whole domesticity of it will freak him out, so i know that this reasoning behind the curse won't happen, and our relationship will be intact....

but then there's this one:
Misdirected attention. The knitter loves their sweater a little too much, and pesters the significant other about the sweater instead of working on their relationship.Alternatively, the knitter loves to knit too much, and spends too much time with their knitting instead of with the significant other.

i haven't seen him much the last couple of weeks, but not because i've had to knit, i just knitted because we haven't seen much of each other...he works til later than i do, and with other stuffs going on, just hasn't worked out...i haven't said to him "oh i can't see you because i have to knit" but...when i'm over his house i always bring my knitting with me (obviously not said sweater, but i have other things to get done) and he says it doesn't bother him, but ya know, if he's playing halo, what am i going to do? i mean i'd play (he got me a pink controller....) but i'd rather knit....and he made a comment that i think he's boring because i'm knitting, which he quickly retracted....he said he loves that i knit and loves when i knit...i mean i feel like i'm ignoring him sometimes when i knit, but i'm not, and he knows i'm not....and he knows i love him, and he also knows that i'm an idiot and decided to knit presents, but he only thinks i'm knitting scarves....

so, i mean, those are 2 main points of the "curse" that stuck out to me, but i'm like, 99% sure if we break up it won't be over the sweater.....well, i hope we don't break up at all...

right now, my stress over the sweater is that i don't know if it will fit....the pattern was causing me problems from the beginning....when it got to the point with the increasing for the raglan increases (redundant much?) it said to do 36 sets of increases (which i took to mean 36 rows...) and then it said to have 113 sts in the front and 113 for the back, and 89 on each sleeve...welllllll....36 rows of increases does not equal those amounts of stitches on the needles....but 28 rows do...so i did that....and i finally got to the 113/89/113/89 and put the sleeves on scrap yarn, and added the 23 sts for the underarms...and the stitch pattern matched up...but i'm looking at it, and i'm not sure it will be big enough....i mean mathwise (taking the # of sts/5 (cuz i get 5sts per inch)) leaves me with about 54", which, according to Old Navy sizing is an XXL, and he fits old navy sweaters, but, it doesn't look big enough....granted the sts are bunced up on 40" circulars, and i've only done a couple of rows, but, i don't know, i wasn't about to slip those sts on scrap yarn at 1am....so i'm thinking i might do that when i get home, get a better grasp of what the sizing is looking like, then i might just rip out those last 2 rows, put the sleeves back on and increase for a few more rows....but i hate doing that...i'm not very good at it, and i don't want to pick back for 2 rows...that's a lot of sts.....i guess what's freaking me out is i had bought an xxl sweater from old navy for sizing reference (because all his sweaters were away for the summer) and i measured it up against what i had knit last night, and the raglan part is waaaaaaaaaaay longer on the old navy sweater....and that started to freak me out...i mean he's got pretty big arms....he's got pretty big everything, he's a big guy...but he's been losing weight lately, i mean not enough to drop from an xxl to an xl, but, i don't know..i just don't know what to do.....


so, it just looks small...like it would fit me...and i wear a men's l....but then again, i'm horrible when it comes to guesstimating and estimating and shit like that....i have no concept of thigns like that....like i have no idea conceptually how long a mile is or how big 54" should be....i can't do it....so its quite possible it will fit....maybe i just need to take it off the needles just to see....the pattern says this would be a good time to try it on.....

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