Dear Chocolate Cashmere

Our relationship has been a rocky one, and certainly didn’t start well. The first time I tried to knit you, you gave me rsi.

Now I fully acknowledge that this was my fault. I knit you on needles too small in order to make you fit a pattern I’d written for thinner yarn, and I apologise. The single sock I made was as stiff as cardboard and did not show off your cushy cashmerey goodness at all. We both know you were destined for better things, and I did promise to give you another try.

Okay, I should have frogged that single sock and not stuffed you back in the stash so carelessly. I know if I’d been more respectful it would have been a reassuring sign that I still had confidence in you. But after all the work in knitting that sock, I couldn’t bear to undo it. You must acknowledge that when I did eventually frog the sock, I lovingly skeined, washed and weighted the yarn as it dried to ease out the kinks. Perhaps you saw this as some kind of torture or humiliation? Trust me, it was for your own good.

Now, I will admit that I had low expectations when I started knitting you into gloves. That had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me being too sick to think my way through a cable pattern, and too scared to do anything complicated lest I make something unworthy of you. Yes. Scared. You don’t know how indimidating you are sometimes. We both had high expectations for you.

I have to point out that when I recovered, physically and mentally, I saw the error of my ways and recognised that great acts require a certain fearlessness. I returned to my former glorious plans for you, and for a while we both bathed in the glow of success.

So what’s up with those fingers? Why did you torture me so, making me knit them over and over and over? I spent close to ten hours knitting those ten infuriating digits. Surely it was of no benefit to yourself to confound me so much that when I went to read my notes the next day they contained instructions such as “pu U st’, or to leave out the extra four rows around the palm between knitting the little finger and the next three? You wouldn’t even let me be clever. Unpicking those three fingers and grafting them on didn’t work, because they contained the wrong number of stitches.

Perhaps you played up more toward the tend because the closer we came to finishing the sooner we would part, not to be reunited until the cooler months roll around again. Whatever the reason, you took it too far. By the end all I wanted was to sew in your ends, block and get you out of my sight.

That was, until I tried you on. Darn it, I can’t believe after all the woes you put me though, I can still feel the cashmerey love.

You better behave during the blocking, though. No shrinking or turning into fat-fingered gardening gloves. Or dissolving. Or… whatever. I don’t know what tricks you still have up your sleeve (ahem), but just know I’l be watching. And that, despite the cashmerey love, a ritual burning is still not completely out of the question.

(Added later.) Here area close-ups of the cabling:

6 thoughts on “Dear Chocolate Cashmere

  1. Wow! Beautiful gloves! I’m so glad you and the cashmere were able to resolve your differences.

  2. I think you’re being a bit hard on the cashmere. ‘Tis a delicate flower, after all, and you could have shown a little more respect. 😉

    The gloves are gorgeous. I hope the cashmere doesn’t go all sulky during the blocking process.

  3. Lovely lovely lovely gloves, such elegant stitchery – maybe it’s just some kind of prima donna yarn – treats you mean to keep you keen??

Comments are closed.