Sunday, October 25, 2009

Does this make me a bad person?

A while ago, I found out that there were three babies recently born or due very soon among my workmates. These were all from parents who I don't work directly with, but I felt that I could handle making two simple cardigans for the little boys and finishing a bolero which was in the UFO pile for the little girl. I gave away one of the cardigans and the bolero, and found out that the other baby's mother wasn't going to be coming in to work for a few months, by which time the cardigan I'd made probably wouldn't fit. But not to worry, her Boss said, someone else in her team had announced that their wife was due to give birth, so I could give them the cardigan I'd made and make another larger one for the original little boy. I was also working on a ribbon-tied wool vest for my old Boss (also at my current work, but no longer my Boss), whose baby is due towards the end of the year.

I didn't have enough superwash wool within easy reach to start the remaining cardigan, so I used a ball of Bendigo Luxury 10 ply (Lake) I had sitting in the cupboard, and started another Felix's Cardigan yesterday morning. (I've made so many of these lately that I'm sure Jack from The Complete Fabrication is going to start up a fair-use policy!) I finished the knitting this afternoon and realised that by using 10 ply wool and 5mm needles as I did, the resulting cardigan has ended up 55cm in the chest, making it about the right size for an 18-24 month old baby. This is probably a really silly size for giving to a baby about 2 months old.



 We will rule over this cardigan, and we will call it.....this cardigan.

Never mind, I thought - there are 4 big plastic boxes full of yarn in the shed, surely there's lots of superwash wool for making up another one. But when I went and raided the boxes, I found that I had rather less superwash wool than I thought I had amassed in my stash, and rather more acrylic, purchased before I knew better.(I haven't weighed it, but there's probably about 5kg of acrylic yarn down there. What was I thinking?)

After a lengthy dive through all the boxes I did find enough superwash wool to make one more short-sleeved cardigan, cast on and knitted about 15 rows before I felt all desire to knit this cardigan draining out of me. I have no motivation to knit another thing for people that I feel like I have to knit for. And I'm really angry at the person who got me into this - myself. None of these new parents expected anything from me. I just thought it would be a good idea, until I realised just how much time it was taking and how much I'd rather be working on other things.

I ripped out the 15 rows. There are a pair of little blue booties in my finished object box, and a baby jumper made from acrylic yarn. (I stopped making baby jumpers from acrylic some time ago due to the risk of melting if it gets too close to a heater, and this jumper was a leftover which I couldn't work out whether to give to charity). I've given woollen cardigans or sweaters to 4 out of 5 new babies and I'm considering giving the 5th one a pair of booties or an acrylic sweater?

Does this make me a selfish, horrible person?

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