when things don't quite work out

I started these cabled gauntlets in January of 2008, in the midst of a Fair-Isle lull. I was watching six hours of Lost every day, and occasionally slipping downstairs to watch people swing dance in the basement of my dormitory. This was my portable project, the one with only one color and one pattern, for when I wanted to knit but didn't want to lug around my increasingly heavy bag filled with size 3 Addi circulars, 12 different colors of Shetland wool, and my battered copy of Knitting Classic Style. So cables would be comparatively easy, right?

But it became neglected as the months went on. I found mistakes, both in the pattern and in my own knitting. And, once I finished the first one, I realized that the pinky finger popped up unpleasantly. The gloves, in short, did not fit like a glove. And the long, gauntlet cuff? How, exactly, was I supposed to fit those under anything? Back into the UFO pile it went.

I finished the Fair Isle sweater in mid-July, and although I always meant to pick these back up and finish them, it just didn't happen. But today I pulled out my bag with the needles and stitch markers and mess of yarn, and I found a big glaring error in the middle of one of the hands, and decided, like hell I am going to fix these. Not during finals, and not ever.

So I cut off the fingers, and wound the yarn. Gulp.

So they - sorry, it, a big hank of purple spaghetti, is soaking now, and visions of a pink-and-purple striped v-neck are dancing in my head. (Plus, said v-neck uses some other dk-weight cashmerino I have left in my stash. Boo-yah.)

After almost four years of knitting, I find myself back where I started: one project on the needles; mind swirling with ideas of what's to come.