Stupid Stupid Pattern

I'm finally back to knitting something for myself. I'm way ahead for mother's day...the wedding cardigan has been mailed and received, and I've turned my attention back to my birthday cardigan, a picture of which can be found on the Skacel site...here. Now, I saw this knit as a shop model at Renaissance Yarns and upon feeling the fiber, had to have it. So I ordered the yarn, bought the pattern book, and waited. Once I had the yarn, I decided to be lazy and not swatch, but would do the sleeves first, and see what happened. I got the cuff just fine, and then I ran into an abbreviation that was NO WHERE IN THE BOOKLET. After scratching my head for a few, I emailed Nancy at Ren Yarns, and had my answer. Then christmas happened and I put the cardigan down. Picking it back up tonight I started where I had stopped, looked at the pattern, and was stumped. I cast on 58 stitches, didn't increase at all (the pattern didn't tell me too) and suddenly, when i start the sleeve pattern, I have 72 stitches. Somewhere, magically, I picked up 14 frackin stitches. Seriously. Where do they come from? I have no idea. I do know, that right now, I don't have the patience to figure it out. I'm torn between wanting to beat the pattern (and by beat I mean figure it out and make my pretty cardigan) and scrapping the whole thing, writing Skacel a nasty-gram, and designing my own darned round cardigan. Dang it.

And another thing...you see it's all round like a bulls-eye...you might assume, as i did, that it's knit like a shawl, slowly growing in diameter. Oh no, it's knit like sections of a bullseye and then sewn together. Dum. Dum Dum Dum.

And of course, I don't want to knit another pair of socks. I want to knit a sweater. Dang it.

Brief update

The last month has been filled the brim and coming down from the high that was the wedding/honeymoon has been tougher than I imagined it to be. Took awhile to get readjusted (still not 100%), had to get over a case of bronchitis that someone shared on the plane ride home (still coughing) and trying like mad to finish the wedding gift from the hawaii wedding (about 70% done). So I have pictures of the wedding and the honeymoon, but haven't gotten them ready to be posted, and I've actually finished a project, but haven't taken the time to photograph them (the cleo socks, for anyone paying attention).

So my head is mostly connected, but I'm not feeling totally caught up yet...so stay tuned. I'm whittling my to-do list from things like officially changing my name to taking photos of projects. I know, my priorities are all mucked up. As the new Mrs.Monkey, I'll try to be better.