Crunch time

The body of the FLAK cardigan is finally done and I am very happy with it. The collar is done and I am happy with that as well, after I ripped out the top half and redid it to add in some shaping decreases on the edges. The band for the buttons is done and it only took one try. Buttons are attached, but just barely (and the number of ends I am going to have to weave in just keeps growing and growing – wince). Buttonhole band was ripped out and redone last night, this time forgoing the ‘just wing it’ philosphy that worked so well on the button band, but *not* the first time around on the buttonhole band, and what do you know, it actually looks better when I take careful stitch counts and make careful measurements.

So now all that is left is to redo the sleeves. And to make sure that I would truly feel the urgency, I ruthlessly ripped out the bottom third of *both* sleeves at once, just so there wouldn’t be any confusion about where to start and what to do. The first sleeve is nearly done – I’d hoped to finish it last night but started falling sleep in mid stitch – and even though I am getting really nervous about how much time I have left, I am glad I decided to redo them, because this first one is making me much happier now.

It may seem like I have just oodles of time left, considering that we leave on Saturday morning and I have a full four days left to weave in a pile of ends and finish up the sleeves. However, I figure I need to factor in a full two days for drying time because I intend to give this thing a complete bath to soften the wool and remove large quantities of knit-in cat hair, which means that I actually need to have all the knitting done by Thursday morning. No problem, you say? Ah, but Wednesday morning I catch a 6am flight to Portland for a business meeting and do not get home until close to 10pm (it’s going to be a very long day) and cabled wool cardigans are not exactly the best sort of airplane knittng, so the chances of my getting any work done on it tomorrow are pretty much nonexistant.

So what this all boils down to is that I have exactly one more evening of knitting time left on this sweater, and that means I have now stepped into the first stages of knitting panic. Not quite as bad as last year at about this time when I ripped out and redid a sweater for my mom in one week, and also not as bad as last Christmas, when I scrambled through a lace doily with minimal sleep in only a few days, but knitting panic nonetheless.

I can do this. Sleep is highly overrated, after all. It’s just about half a sleeve left, which, in the grand scheme of the sweater, will be a breeze. Deep breath. I can do this. I’m sure I can.