finally back to the sweater! a perfect day for projects yesterday. the creatures napped....the sun was shining... the beer was cold. all conditions a Go for making headway on this ginormous endeavor. finished the front. the back and the neck of the sweater. For the front and back i sewed straight straight through every inch or so and it created a very even grid-like look. the yarn lays horizontal and the stitching made vertical lines through it. i thought it seemed a little too regimented for the style i was going for. then i was like....duh! this is a quilting machine! what am i doing martha stewert. i should be sewing all every which way through this mother.... so i took the foot pressure off and just went dukes of hazzard on the thing and it started looking much better. the shape became a little more amorphic and it got bubbly and cool. and all the sewing has actually felted it just slightly! (um.....yeah...i'm a dumb ass...it IS a needle on there....needle-felting, think i have heard of that?). originally i was going to slightly felt it in the washer anyway...so this takes care of that.

there were also many loose ends hanging out and i just decided to leave them hanging. what is it with me? i am realizing that in every project i do.....no matter how perfect i plan it to be...i always end up exploiting the imperfections. like this sweater....i couldn't stand those straight lines! and every loose strand or missed loop was like a little exciting gift. oooo! this is wrong.... good! you would think i was raised by nuns or something... but i wasn't...i was raised in a winery- that's about as loose as they come. i don't know. it just doesn't feel right to dominate a thing so much. if it wants to pop a loose strand- let it pop. control kills. that's my new motto. you can control a thing to death. this is true in any area: craft, parenting, relationships, whatever. it's like yoda said in star wars II to anakin before (or as he was about to) turn into darth vader: "you have to let go of that which you fear most to lose". you have to let go of something if you want it to stick around. and what did he do? he tried to control it and he lost the girl and he turned into the evil dark lord. so i guess what i'm saying is....in every little thing we endeavor to do, we can be yoda...or we can be darth vader. i'm pretty sure yoda spins. i mean....that cloak he wears while he's chillin' under that tree? looks like handspun to me. anyway. better to be a guide than a master.


the front of the sweater....strand just loosely tacked together. getting ready to sew.



very even rows!



the bottom edge: nice and wavey....



loose ends. just lettin' them be.



the neck. did it in a different way. left it really loopy and tangly for a pretty contrast to the more "tamed" body of the sweater.



after the high speed quilting:



getting there! front, back and neck. now for the sleeves.....