Today I am struggling with what I’ll call “the ghost of the better knitting pattern.” It’s a powerful nagging shadow that haunts nearly all of my projects, appearing about 75% of the way in and lingering until the end. In the beginning it manifests as seemingly practical questions: Do I already own too many cardigans?; What could I wear this sweater with?; and Is this the best use of this yarn? If things are really bad, I start cheating on the pattern before the garment is even done…running searches on ravelry and comparing. Sometimes when the piece is done I love it after all. Sometimes not.
Yesterday I got to the last seam in the Vignette Cardigan and the ghost was telling me to frog it. I went to sleep thinking about it, woke up thinking about it, tried it on again:
: and ultimately decided to not decide for a while.
The pattern I was cheating on Vignette with is this:
The Vignette is a cute sweater. The pattern’s well written and there’s nothing obviously wrong with the fit or size of what I made. But I forgot how much fitted wool sweater sleeves make my armpits sweat. For real! That’s why I had to give Neulottu Naisen Jakku to momser who is always cold. And sadly, it’s why I made need to unravel sweet little Vignette and turn it into something else.
For now I’ll set it aside and work on one of those poncho patterns.
