Man vs. Sweater

On Monday night I was sitting in my favorite chair, placidly knitting away on the Rhinebeck Sweater and watching an episode of To the Manor Born.



In the middle of a shoulder decrease row I was seized with the sudden urge to try the sweater on and see how it was shaping up.



Normally, of course, I'd have picked up some waste yarn and moved the stitches onto it before doing a fitting. But that night I was feeling confident and experienced and devil-may-care and all those other things you feel just before your project Goes Terribly Wrong.

One rogue part of my brain, the same part that back in 1974 accepted a nursery school dare to see what would happen if I stuck a rock up my nose, decided it would be easier to just leave the sweater on the needle and try it on that way.

It was all going fine, and then:



Shades of Pooh, stuck in Rabbit's front door. No matter. I'd simply shrug it off and go on with my knitting.



Just...a little...shrug...



No good. Maybe a little maneuver we like to call the "Martha Graham."



Or did I mean Bob Fosse?



My contortions, while increasingly extreme, were perhaps not without an occasional grace note.



Was this how Mummenschanz began?

After several minutes without progress, emotions became somewhat heated.



And then at last:



Ahhh. Sweet victory. Man 1, Sweater 0.

On Tuesday morning, by the way, it rained. Coincidence? I think not.