Yarn Along (#19)

I'm joining Ginny at small things for another Yarn Along...

I didn't get a lot of knitting done this week, but I did finish my first 5k, and I did get over the hurdle I was facing last week:  how to handle the shoulder seams on the sweater I'm making.  I figured out how to shape the shoulders with short rows and used a 3 needle bind off.  And I tried it on both of my older daughters and it fits perfectly!  So that was a success.

My next challenge then was to figure out what to do with the neck.  I knew how I wanted it to look, but I was afraid I didn't have enough yarn.  So instead of going ahead with the idea and finding another ball of yarn if I need it, I decided to scrap that idea and try another one:  a dropped stitch turtleneck.  Before I even started knitting the neck, I think I knew it wasn't going to work.  But I kept going anyway because I was at least knitting and making some progress.  When I finished, I knew immediately that it was a failure and I'll have to rip it all out.  It's yet another reminder to always trust your instincts when it comes to knitting!

I knew that neckline wasn't going to work because I made a destroyed cowl last year out of a handspun yarn I had.  I had seen a number of destroyed cowls made out of handspun yarns and they were gorgeous.  But after knitting the whole thing and dropping the stitches and trying it on, it looked terrible on me.  And I didn't like the look of the dropped stitches.  I didn't even bother to take a picture of it finished.  I frogged the whole thing and now that yarn is sitting unused in my yarn stash.  I don't think I'll ever use it again.  It will remind me of the first failure.

{{I'm happy to send this handspun yarn from the cowl to anyone who wants it.  It's been knit, frogged, and rewound by hand into balls.  Just leave a comment for me with a note that you'd like it, and I'll send it to you.  Otherwise, it truly will sit here unloved.  If more than one person wants it, I'll go with the first person to respond.}}

As for reading, I've acquired this little stack of books over the past 2 weeks at yard sales and a church book sale.  I'm moving quickly through Wuthering Heights and I'll be saving the other three for this summer.  Wuthering Heights is a much darker story than I remember.  Whenever I hear references to this novel, they suggest that Heathcliff and Catherine have a romantic, tragic love story.  And it is tragic.  But it's also obsessive and hurtful.  There isn't much to redeem either character as human beings.  Maybe that changes as the book progresses.  I'm still enjoying the story, but it's a much more complex story than I remember.

What are you reading and knitting this week?