Steps forward & steps back

I went home last night and knit about 5 inches up on the Peace Fleece & Noro - spitting distance of the armscye, what with the choice to make this a quick knit on 11's. It was great, finally a little cooler, so I could enjoy knitting in a bit of a breeze. (It'd been a bit too hot to really enjoy knitting the Peace Fleece last weekend, but I was on a mission.)

This morning, sailing away, I discovered that when I started last night's knitting, I'd manufactured an increase in one of the rows of ribs. How could I not have noticed the shift in rhythm from 6knit 2purl to a sudden 7 knit? The increase cropped up right after the marker at the top of the round. Nuts.

Since it had to come off the needles, I snuck in a fitting - to see where the hem of this lovely soft and drapey boyfriend big rib sweater needs to fall. I hate a fitting that has built-in mid-age body-image sighing built into it. That part took an extra 3 minutes, I swear. And then the real troubles began. I'd thought I was using my noodle and had measured (and fit) the sweaters I wanted this one to be comparable to. This was always and ever going to be a large, comfy pullover, a jeans sweater to upgrade my least-dressed work days when I run between buildings without a coat. And this nice, drapey fabric would be fine, but without the strength of an upper body, it seemed REALLY big.

I remeasured. I spent part of the day playing hookey from my self-imposed work schedule and knit back about half of what I'd frogged, so I wouldn't go crazy and undo the whole thing.

Maybe it's having looked at too many pictures of sharp looking, curvy cropped and current summer sweaters. I must remember that this is not a summer sweater, it'd NEVER suit me cropped, and there is nothing wrong with knitting a simple big rib which of course widens tremendously when yanked off the needles and not finished. And I should just finish the sweater. It will be fine. I don't need to spend an extra half hour rethinking the proportions of the sweater.

Right? I do not need to keep taking steps back on purpose.

Of course, I'm also now fretting about the placement of the remainder of the Noro. I have 3 biggish stripes floating below the bustline. I think I'll have some amount of striping on the sleeves, and I'll continue to think about the contrasting dilemmas for the top of the upper body. Do I run a band across front, back, and top of sleeves when knitting set-in sleeves? Do I have an easier (maybe) time of striping while trying to do a whole lot of "knit the whole thing in the round" experimenting. Is the KISS solution solid upper body and upper arms with contrast accent around collar band?

(This blog business is interesting. I've usually had this fretful second-guess stretch privately. )

The original steps forward were toward a no-thinking raglan roll. I think that was late last winter. I was up to the last sleeve with what was really too tight a fabric and ran out of wool. I was supersizing the sweater (only the sweater, not me) and clearly over-estimated it. The thing sat for a whole winter, and I found an interesting mate in the Noro and a couple skeins of same wool different lot. They sat together for quite awhile. I frogged back the whole thing early this summer.

If it's not finished in summer, I'll never get to it by the chilly part of fall. By then I'll need it. If I'm going to have to look schlumpy on a regular basis, I'm at least going to do it with flair and with beautiful yarn!

Maybe I'll work on the Cambio for a couple days.