Delayed Shrug

Last summer I made Lee a shrug for her birthday. I almost finished an entire sleeve before I realized that it would be big enough for two of her. I ripped the whole thing out – this is called “frogging” in the knitting world because you rip it, rip it.  I started again, but was disheartened by the set back, and took a LONG time to finish it.  Her birthday is in July.  I finally delivered it in November.

The first time I saw her wear it I realized that the back was too broad.  This was my own fault.   I totally did not trust the pattern (in my defense, it had already lied once) or the measurements I had taken of Lee’s back.  I have a very broad back, and I just could not make myself believe that it was possible for a grown woman to have such a tiny frame.  I should have trusted the tape measure.  I convinced her to give the shrug back to me so that I could cut it apart, rip it back to be narrow enough for her, and sew the back seam again.  All of that happened fairly quickly, despite a major disagreement with the seam about whether or not it should be bumpy and weird, and I returned the shrug to Lee.

After all that work, I did not have a single picture of the thing!  Last night Lee modeled her shrug, and I got some photos.  You can see the details about the knitting aspects of the project on Ravelry. You can also check out pictures of more of my knitting projects in my Knitting Projects set on Flickr.

Notice that the sleeves are actually “too long” by ordinary standards.  That is by design at Lee’s request.  As if to make up for her impossibly narrow back, she was blessed with extremely long arms.  She was absolutely thrilled at the idea that the sleeves of ANYTHING would dangle over her hands.  The lace on these sleeves makes it especially nice.