Inspiration Mondays on a Tuesday: Just Sweaters

Today, quite simply, I am inspired by yarn. No big shocker, but this is different. This is sweater yarn.


After nearly a year of abstaining from knitting myself a garment while I was becoming healthier, lowering my blood pressure, and losing weight, I am finally able to say, "I think I'll knit myself a sweater." And that is a big, big deal, because:
  • I've had to watch others make beautiful things that I couldn't cast on for.
  • I've had to endure disapproval of this personal health project, both verbal and silent.
  • I've spent almost a year beating up this body day after day and being extra careful of what I put into my mouth so I could reach this day.
  • I can now knit a sweater with significantly less yarn than I ever could before, because I'm 79 pounds smaller, and that's a LOT of yarn I don't need to cover myself.
Luckily, WEBS had a big sale of Cascade 220 in discontinued colours that coincided with me reaching my health goals. That was quite decent of them, really, to hold a sale for this occasion... ahem...

Lots of people asked me what I would do when I got to my goal. And finally I said, "I will knit myself lots and lots of sweaters." And most people thought I was crazy when I said that.

But I think I'm pretty lucky, myself, because I made it. And now... I get my reward.


Comments

Tara Candy said…
Congrats! I love your reward, and I'm proud of and inspired by you! Now get knitting. ;)
YarnKettle said…
How nice of Webs to have a sale for you! 79 pounds lighter, wow! You totally earned a few sweaters.
AdrieneJ said…
Yeah, it was awfully sweet of them, wasn't it? It feels good to have a sweater on the needles!
Mary said…
I wasn't sure how to contact you because the form linked in the right-hand column doesn't seem to be working. After watching your video on Youtube about changing your gauge (thanks so much for that, it really helped!), I just have a question: after figuring out how many sts to CO with the gauge you're using, won't that affect the amount of sts you'll BO or INC throughout the pattern? How do you figure out those new amounts? Thank you so much for your help!
AdrieneJ said…
Hi Mary! Thanks for letting me know about my form. I've made an update to it that I hope fixes it.

As for your question, you have to apply the same steps to each stitch count throughout your pattern. Once you know your new gauge, you go through your pattern and adjust for the number of stitches for each increase and decrease. Let's say you have to decrease a total of 6 stitches for a sleeve, and the previous gauge was 24 sts = 4 inches. That means that, if you decrease by 6 sts, you are decreasing by 1 inch. You need to figure out how many stitches in your new gauge will make one inch, and decrease by that number instead. I hope that helps! Try my new form link again if you have more questions, or reply here.
Mary said…
Awesome thanks, I'll give that a shot.