Sweater Frustrations

I'm trying to knit myself a sweater. And it is not going well.

You may remember the beautiful alpaca I obtained in Kansas. There should be more than enough to knit myself a nice cardigan. If I can EVER get mother-loving GAUGE.

Gauge is one of the more frustrating parts of knitting for me. I'm a very loose knitter (here I must pause to say "hur hur" because the Irishman isn't here), so there's never any point in following indicated needle sizes. On a side note, is it just me, or are ball band instructions frequently from some other reality? I would never knit dk weight on a size 7 needle unless I was making lace.

Anyway, this poses a problem when it comes to knitting fitted garments, especially ones for myself. As I've mentioned from time to time, I'm a big girl. While I'm personally comfortable with my ample proportions, it does make knitting sweaters for myself a much more time-consuming task than knitting them for babies or skinnier friends (SQ I am looking at you!) I've only ever knit one sweater for myself (the Boyfriend Sweater from Hip to Knit).

So it's very frustrating to be putting all this time into knitting a single freakin' sleeve. First there was the gauge thing. I finally got a gauge I could live with, put together a nice little design, and started knitting a sleeve. I was probably six or seven inches along. Then, one night as I was drifting off to sleep, I had a vision.

And that vision said "garter stitch!" So I ripped the damn thing out AGAIN. Argh.

But now it is humming along. For the moment, at least.

(Incidentally, my vision lied. It meant to say "seed stitch!")