Medieval Extra

My husband's birthday is always too close to Christmas for comfort. This year I was caught with my proverbial pants around my ankles. Being a knitter I tried to salvage the situation with a woolly offering. This year, my husband is going to get a custom spun, custom knit, sweater pattern of his choosing...a masterpiece. We've been debating the sweater in question for years. He hates cables, yokes, sleeves without cuffs, and embellishment of any sort. The color must be something that will blind me with it's dreary manly monotonous blah. Miles of stockinette stitch awaited my already heavy needles. To try and salvage what I thought was going to be a very, very boring part of my knitting life, I turned to Elizabeth Zimmerman. I'd been wanting to try her devilishly clever sweater formula ( found here ) for years, and so, with pattern approved, we went stash diving. I have bags of beautiful wool, in all sorts of colors, but my sweet husband went for a pile of old brown Corridale from my early spinning days. No doubt, he thought he was saving me some time. It's a bulky yarn, a bit over spun, and not all the skeins are the same weight of yarn. "Are you sure?", I asked him. He was sure. This was the perfect combination of pattern and wool.

I'm not so sure. I had pictures of a softer, finer, tweedy creation, something that was understated, yet elegant. He has promised to wear this sweater at every opportunity. It's going to be a sort of billboard, advertising my knitterly love. I'm deeply conflicted. There is a part of me that likes to show off. It's not a small part. The part of me that likes to show off is in a fight with the part of me that tries not to care. It's his sweater. He loves it, and yet, yet....it's reminiscent of something from the set of a period piece about the ravages of the plague. This over spun brown bag with a slight halo is one for the ages. It's never going to wear out. I know in my bones that he'll wear that thing every day, and it will only grow stronger from my secret desire to destroy it. This might explain why it's taking me so long to finish it. Every time I pick up the needles it practically knits itself. EZ's pattern is making for a perfect fit, and that sneaky medieval evil sweater has already grown a body and a very long arm.
I finally plucked up the courage to show it to my knitting group. There was a brave silence, before people began with the gentle encouragement. They are truly a lovely bunch of ladies, but they are liars, every one.