[SUMMARY: Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.]
I shan't drag you through the litany of "stuck in the camera" and "busy at work" and all that. You know the song, I'll let you sing it on your own.
Suffice to say I finished Dr. Doom's Christmas sweater around the end of January,‡ then through the vagaries of joint custody, finally got it to him mid-February.
I took the basic top-down raglan sweater,§ I've been using for everything Nephew, added a textured alligator belly through the miracle of intarsia-in-the-round, then winged it on the sleeves.¶
%
It was the winging it part that really mucked up the works.
There I'd be in my chair at work, madly correcting, explaining, marketing, e-schmoozing and otherwise getting the job done, when suddenly, sleeve panic would hit me and I'd start doing the alligator thing with my elbows,# using paper clips to mark the place where alligator lips should be and re-figuring where alligator mouth should go...
[SUMMARY: Every person does multi-tasking in his own way.]
Is it any wonder I was so absent for so long? I had a lot going on.
In the end, I think it worked out pretty well.
But the true test is how it works for Dr. Doom.
[SUMMARY: Proof, meet pudding.]
First, getting naked in Chipotle.††
Then test-driving the beast.
Why, arm, what big teeth you have!
Let's see, important knitting stuff:
First, this is the proudest knitting moment of my knitterly life. It's the closest I've come to designing something, and it's something unique and cool and interesting and wowing and I'm just so tickled.
The sweater was originally inspired by this genius shirt from the Discovery Channel Store. I quickly realised that a white and pale grey shirt was no match for a five-year-old supervillain, so I decided to go with the classic gator.
Other than the pupils of the eyes, which are Dark Horse Fantasy, the whole thing is knit in Cascade 220 Superwash.
I made nose-holes‡‡ of I-cord loops.
The eyes took as long as the rest of the sweater put together. I had alligator eyes all over my living room for weeks. When one gets a solid vision of what one wants, it's hard for one to accept anything different.§§
One thing I believe the pattern misses, and that I missed too, is that when you put the sleeve stitches on holders to knit the body, you cast on an inch under the arm.
Which - and this is very important - adds two inches to the body of the sweater.
[SUMMARY: Math even I can do.]
On the one hand, I was delighted to get gauge. On the other, getting gauge meant I was the full two inches bigger than I wanted.
I had planned to sew up the sides, take out a couple of inches, but figured I'd better try it on the good Doctor first.¶¶ Yes, it's just a bit too big.
The neck is also big, being unfinished. I knit a nice 3-2 rib collar about 37 times and it always seemed too small.## So I left it unfinished for maximum headroom. Yes, it's just a bit too big.
I told Brother I wanted to take it home and finish it properly and he assured me Doom will be wearing a t-shirt under it most of the time, so aesthetically it's OK.
[SUMMARY: Aesthetics are what you're looking for in a sweater for a five-year-old.]
I don't know if he doesn't want to put me out or if he's afraid they'll never see it if I get my grubby hands on it again.
Hey! We've had a fair amount of knitting around here lately. You'd almost think this was still a knitblog.
†FOOTNOTE (crossed): And, y'know, it's all about me. And my lamp.
‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): And I would've finished it *much* faster if Dr. Doom hadn't given me a VERY COMPELLING game for my Nintendo DS for Christmas. *ahem*
§FOOTNOTE (swerved): And I'm not sure why I keep using this one, except that it's familiar. The sizing is all wrong, vis-a-vis boys S-M-L. I always ask Brother to measure a shirt that fits, then try to match the inches from there.
¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Wing... sleeves... heheheheheh... I'm funny.
%FOOTNOTE (percented): With the new office, I no longer have a clean white wall behind a hanger to photograph my sweaters. Whatever shall I do now?
#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Sound effect: "RAWR!"
††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Note the find cow hat on Brother's head, a Valentine's present from his favourite Seester. He brings me Icelandic sludge and lopi, I bring him cow hats.
‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): nostrils-nose holes ... to-may-to, to-mah-to.
§§FOOTNOTE (twisted definition time): Read: lesser.
¶¶FOOTNOTE (you can beat it into my head): I may not be a math genius, but I do have my moments of clarity.
##FOOTNOTE (square head, round hole, pound pound): Which I determined by trying to fit it over my own head, under the suspicion that heads grow less than anything else in a person's life, therefore kid heads must be nearly as large adult heads.
