If you want to destroy my sweater . . .

Darn. I got pretty far with the Surplice Lace Top, up to casting off for the armholes.

Then I laid it out and measured it, and I had my daughter hold it up to my back (since I’m currently knitting the back half).

Two inches too narrow. Aargh.

It looked plenty wide to me as I knit it. And in a normal sweater I might have gone for the negative ease, although 4” of negative ease (back and front combined) is an awful lot. But this sweater front is a surplice design with already a somewhat low front. I didn’t want to make the top tight and uber-risqué as well.

I began to have doubts about the fit when my knitting of the back yoke seemed to be yielding many beautiful tidy little stitches. Those tidy little stitches were my warning, as I had based my calculations on a looser gauge.

Rowan Calmer is a tricky yarn. I had swatched it, but it’s very stretchy and hard to figure. As I knit the top, I became more comfortable with the yarn and found my groove. And behold, the groove reaped smaller stitches.

It was tempting, so tempting, to knit on. But I remembered the many warnings I had read about knitting entire garments with faulty gauge, expecting some magic to happen and the garment to ultimately fit. It doesn’t.

If I’d tried to block the finished garment wider, it would have shortened, and I didn’t want a cropped top. At 5’8”, I need all the length I can get. (I’m knitting from my stash, and unfortunately I don’t have enough yarn to add much length to this top.)

So with a gulp, I hauled out the swift and ball winder and got busy undoing my work.

Fortunately, both my kids were here working at the kitchen table. Since I feed the yarn through our ceiling kitchen lighting fixture and over to the counter, the sweater being frogged was in the midst of my son’s laptop and my daughter’s artwork. In fact, I anchored the knitting under my son’s computer so the stitches would unravel more smoothly.

And my kids helpfully began singing Weezer’s “Sweater Song” to me:

If you want to destroy my sweater
Pull this thread as I walk away
Watch me unravel I’ll soon be naked
Lying on the floor, lying on the floor
I’ve come undone

Then my son thoughtfully regarded the stitches disappearing before his eyes. And he mused aloud in the highly dramatic tone of a political speech:

“This unraveling sweater is like our dreams. We build these crazy patterns and complex designs . . . only to find that it’s All Too Small. And then we have to go back and unravel . . . and create a new dream . . . one that’s greater . . . one that fits us.”

By the time my kids were done with me, I was remarkably cheered up. And now I have begun again, building my new dream . . . one that fits me.