Have you ever worked on a project that got to be so cumbersome that it seemed it would never end? I've had a couple of them in the works lately. The first was a shawl that grew exponentially larger. Seriously, it grew a half an inch every row, getting to the point that I couldn't even tell how large it was because it was so bunched up on the needle. Well, it's done. How did I know it was almost finished? Well, I got down to the last few yards of yarn and had to call it quits. After I cast it off (in more ways that one), it quickly because apparent why the rows seemed so goddamn long: they were. What I thought was a straight row across the top of a triangular piece was actually the two angled sides of a 45/45/90 triangle. Wow.

After I finished that, I rested my hands for a little while, pausing to watch some telly without knitting anything. Shocking behavior. I was immobilized by a large tabby cat snoring away on my lap under the newly completed shawl. He strictly enforces knitting breaks to prevent me from developing carpal tunnel syndrome (or ever wearing an item of clothing without cat hair on it). Once he decamped, I cast on for a top down raglan cardigan in Malabrigo worsted, with the same pair of needles. It grew and grew and grew, as raglans do. Each row seemed to take forever as I neared the armpits. Strangely, that part of the sweater is the widest point in a yoked sweater, since it includes all of the sleeve stitches as well as the body. My enthusiasm for a top down sweater can be expressed as an inverse ratio to the number of stitches. Fortunately, I managed to push my way through and have finally put the sleeves onto waste yarn. My relief at getting those 134 stitches out of the way is palpable.