Sometimes I think Leo is cursed.  There were the 10 gazillion times I ran out of yarn… only to discover that 2 gazillion of those re-orders were taken up on sleeves that had to be hacked off.  Now….

I had finished the sleeves and I am fairly happy with how they turned out.  So, I sat down today to pick up the stitches around the neck and get started addressing this huge neck issue.  Now, the pattern calls for the body to be knit on a size 4 and then things like cast ons and this neck are done with a size 3.  So, I knew that would make the neck fill in just a bit.  But I wasn’t sure it would fill in enough.

I pick up my handy dandy stitches.  I proceed in a 1 x 1 ribbing.  I decided to work in some decreases at the shoulder seam of the front neck.  It was looking nice and I thought things were finally going my way.  I was supposed to do this 1 x 1 for about an inch and then do a stockinette rolled collar.  I continued my 1 x 1 for about an additional half of an inch because of how big that collar area was.

Anyway, Dana gets home from work and for safety, I ask him to try the thing on.  I wanted to see if I needed to do anymore decreases and if my plan was working.  Oh…. it was working all right.  The man could not get the thing over his head!!!!!  I only did those decreases four time.  Four.  F-O-U-R.  Four.  So, I couldn’t have taken up much space with that.  I suppose the pattern was written to make that collar area that big and it wasn’t my messed-up-alpaca-stretchin’-row-gauge-off knitting afterall. 

So… now I’m tinking.  I hate tinking.   Hate it.  Bad.  Here’s where we are as of now.

I’ve gone back a ways and now I want Dana to try it on again.  He’s starting to get a tone in his voice when he asks questions about the sweater.  Yesterday he asked "what kind of collar will it be?" but his tone was "you’re not going to leave this sweater looking all girly, are  you?" 

I know the tone because I use the tone.  Its the same tone I use when Dana is making me a piece of furniture or building something in the house and I’m seeing a problem.  Its my "Did you suddenly take the short bus to crazy town?" tone of voice.  So, Dana is having trust issues.  I’m sure I didn’t help when I had him put on a sweater that wouldn’t go over his head.

Cursed!