To say that I hate buttons is inaccurate. I love buttons. I love looking at them, I love buying huge containers of them at flee markets or thrift stores and digging through them for long lost buttons no one knows exist but me. I love when I buy nice sweaters or jackets (or back when I used to buy nice clothes) and they come with extra buttons in a small plastic bag on the tag, or hidden away in the sleeve or sewn to the washing instructions. Anthropology wrapped its presents with button ribbon this holiday season and I’ve been treasuring it! My button anxiety comes from button functionality. Picking out buttons for a sweater I knit is my nightmare. I hate finding matching buttons. I hate standing in the button aisle at Joann and pricing buttons, trying to shove buttons through my bind off/cast on buttong holes to see if they will fit. I hate when I need six or, god forbid, eight buttons and I can only find four that I like that match. I sit on sweaters for months, completely done but for the buttons. I have button anxiety.
Sweater Jacket Finished! Well, All But the Buttons
You can imagine my feelings when I finished my sweater! I was freaking out!
In all seriousness, this sweater was a joy to knit. It was quick and fun and has minimal finishing. It was fun to use two such different needle sizes, the 15s and the 7s, and two such different yarn textures. The yoke increases for the shoulders were easy and before I knew it I was done with the body of the sweater. It was probably something I did, but the only problem I had was with the button hole bands. The instructions literally say to pick up and knit 156 stitches on each side. That is impossible to begin with, since most of the pick up space is made of the Homespun yarn, so I picked up the correct number of stitches at the neck band and bottom band, then picked up each stitch in the Homespun to KFB in each of these stitches to get 156. When I finished the band, though, it was all buckled and wavey because 156 is way too many stitches for the sweater. I pulled it all out and picked up 125 instead and it worked perfectly, as you can see. Very smooth and cute! Velma really likes it, too.
I started thinking about button shopping, even looked around online a little. Then Pudge knocked over my button jar and I thought, ‘Sign!’
Velma Approves
Fuck it. I’m using mismatched buttons I already have. These buttons. And it is going to be cute. If anything it will just bring more attention to the fact that I knit this sweater! I did! And it is cute, dammit.
That also means that I’m going to gauge my sweater dress today! We are gauging this week in sweater class so I should set a good example. I have sweater dress anxiety, too! I’m just a little ball of anxiety!
