The Magic of the Raglan

One of the beautiful things about knitting is you can try on a garment while you are working on it. Slip the socks over your heel and see if you are anywhere near the toes decrease yet. Pull the fingerless gloves on your wrist and see if you are ready to start the thumb gusset. This seems like a duh kind of moment but today it really caught me by surprise. I am making myself a top down raglan sleeved sweater for the first time. It’s a cardigan. I finished the body of the sweater and now I am going back to do the sleeves.Sleeves and I don’t always get along. It seems I have to make at least three for every sweater I knit. They are usually too long. I try to adjust but I never get it just right. I always have to rip back and try again. Today I slipped my cardigan over my shoulder to check my progress. The sleeve in progress already hit me in the middle of my upper arm. If I continued with the set of decreases the pattern mapped out I’d have orangutan arms once again. But the lovely raglan construction meant I could stop the madness right now! I adjusted the number of plain rows between decreases. I am so delighted I can’t tell you how excited I am. I love the knit journey as much as the next knitter but ripping back is no fun when you want to get to wear a sweater that fits!Now why share a “duh” moment like that? Well here’s the thing: Sometimes I get a little cocky with my knitting. I’ve been doing it every day for years now. But today was a reminder there is always something to learn. There are more nuances to discover and more tips and tricks to ease my way through a knitted project. And rather than sigh over the fact that I’ve knit this long and am still learning some basics I got kinda excited. How cool is it that I have more to find out! I’ve chosen a hobby of choice that will keep me intrigued for years.And it’s not lost on me that I could apply this lesson to other areas of my life. Life long learning is a very good thing. Yeah, I know it was just getting the sleeves right for a change on my latest sweater project but it was such a good reminder to keep my eyes open to learn a little something new.