Support

OK peeps. When Brooklyn Tweed rates a pattern as difficult, take it under advisement. Especially when all of the reviews you read corroborate this perspective. Don't assume that, cuz a pattern looks simple it is simple. (Not that I did, but really, it looks so simple!)

I'm in the dark hole of this knitting process,trying to establish the set up row where the yoke turns into the fronts, sleeve place holders, underarms, and back. Last night was 2 hours of work on this one freakin' row, followed by an emotional breakdown, followed by ripping back without considering that tinking (knitting backwards) was the right course, followed by the horror of discovering two strings of yarn hanging on both sides of the back panel (the only part currently on the needles) - one attached to the skein, the other to the back panel. The only way to "start over" is to put the sleeve stitches (now on waste yarn) back on the needles and then knit backwards some more. Instead, I'm inclined to work with the finite length of yarn I've got in front of the back panel (it was enough to pick up and knit a bunch of stitches the first time around) and then keep going from there. But it's going to be a tense ride.*

There is, so far, nothing relaxing about making this garment. I mean, it would seem that it's very purpose is to keep one on one's toes.

And yet, it's not a bad pattern. It's just freakin' detailed. So detailed that most everyone fucks up somewhere and has to either fix it on the fly or rip back. I mean, it's never taken me so long to knit 50 odd rows (the yoke portion).

Apparently, it gets easier after this set up row which is good because I'm entirely distracted by the thought of it. That unfinished row is currently tormenting me.

At any rate, this post is not just to bitch about knitting trauma, but to tell you the most heartwarming story. At 10 pm, I sent a flurry of emails to tech support at Brooklyn Tweed, imagining I'd get feedback the next morning. (My questions were about the pattern instructions - not my stupid method of ripping back which is, natch, in no way BT's concern...) In actual fact, I got feedback in 5 minutes. Yeah - 5 minutes. I was so shocked I had to know if I'd simply caught a staffer late at the office, or if this is one of the Brooklyn Tweed value-adds. Apparently, it's the latter.

So, in addition to having the hippest website, the coolest designers, the best-documented patterns, the wooliest yarn and the most covetous look books, BT gives you perfect customer service.

Really, support this brand. We need more like them.

*It doesn't help that I fucked up the cartridge rib at a certain point (at the outer edge on one side - it's not that I worked the pattern incorrectly, but that I started it one stitch early for a while). So now, my every row requires a visual confirmation that I'm in pattern. I just can't rely on the cartridge pattern outlined the instructions. Trust me, I considered ripping back to the problem point, but I the likelihood is that something else would have gone wrong the next time. Like I said, it's like jumping from one plank (over a pit) to another.