Dry walling....

So, this green sweater that I’ve been telling you about for weeks (or has it only been one week?) is finished. But before I get to the glory of how beautiful I think it is (ok, it’s not really beautiful, it’s more “cute” but we can debate that at a later date – like tomorrow because I can’t show you a picture at this time…I’m hoping tomorrow to go to an internet point) I have to tell you about my day today.

I recognize that there are many OliveKnitting readers who are not actually knitters. That’s cool…too bad for you because you are missing one hell of a time with yarn and needles, but I’m glad you tune in all the same. So for you, non knitters I will try to explain my day today in terms you might understand.

Today I had to sew together all the pieces of my sweater and weave in all the yarn ends. For you non knitters let me paint a picture. Ever do any work on your house? Add on a den or convert the basement or the attic into another room? Ya know that euphoria when the whole thing is framed in and the dry wall goes up? Isn’t that great? You’re thinking, “yeah, we got us a den!” Or “Cool, my in-laws can come and stay in the new guest room in the attic!”

Yeah, well, then you have to tape and mud.

Sewing a sweater together and weaving in the ends is the mudding and taping of knitting. And, yes, it sucks just the same.

Just like with the dry wall, you are deceived into thinking that you are done. I have been knitting for 8 years now and I still foolishly think a sweater is done when I have cast off the last stitch. WRONG-OOOOOOOOOO. All the hard work is just starting…and the boring, and detailed work too.

Just like with mudding and taping, you can do the sewing together in a hap-hazard way but you see it. Yeah, ok, so you have a sweater in the end but every time you put it on you see all those f$&^#ed up seam stitched you made and you can’t even wear it. It’s the same as not being able to enter that den because you can’t see the new big screen tv you bought in celebration of the room…all you see are the terrible ugly seams in the walls where you put too much mud on and didn’t take the time to sand properly. Which brings me to weaving in the ends.

This job of weaving in ends is absolutely the sanding of mudded and taped walls. At this point you now have a framed room AND it is also somewhat sealed. Sanding?! You gotta be kidding. I feel the same about weaving in the ends. BUT....Did you ever walk into a room that was mudded and taped but not sanded? Did you ever put on a sweater with 7 inch strings hanging from every intersection (if you don’t understand how many “intersections” there are in a sweater, go get one and look at where the sides meet each other, where the sleeves meet the body, where the collar meets itself and where it meets the body, where the cuffs meet each other…did I miss any? That’s a lot of dangling strings) Yeah, you gotta do it.

So, that’s what I did today. But, I gotta tell ya, just like a new den with well mudded, taped, and sanded walls is worthy of a great new paint job (or a new big screen), my new sweater was worthy of home-made buttons, which I gave it .

Hope to talk to you tomorrow with a photo