Shades of Pom Pom puppies

I was sitting in bed writing the post below and Dave walked in before I had finished and told me two dreadful snatches of news he’d heard on the radio and depressed the hell out of me, which is a shame because I had woken up feeling quite chipper. But I have reminded myself what Het said to cheer me up when I was in pieces over the plight of the Palestinians  -‘They want us to care, not to suffer’ - so I have metaphorically squared my shoulders and shall continue with the following post.

Here goes.

Tank tops/sleeveless jumpers are all the rage. I first realised this when I saw one on the Toast website two months ago. 

You might as well know that looking at clothes online and not buying them is something I do quite a lot of. I love clothes but I don’t buy many. Partly it’s because of lack of money and partly its because I’m a Quaker and I try to lead a simple life.

But I do love clothes, and I really liked that sleeveless sweater I saw on Toast so I decided to make one myself. It was knitted in a random design of faint stripes and I realised that I could knit mine in scraps of wool I had in my knitting drawer. I had some arran wool and to get the same thickness from other scraps I knitted two strands of 4ply together. I knew I’d enjoy working out a colour scheme. So I began. I didn’t have a pattern so did it out of my head. This sounds clever but there’s not a lot of shaping in a tank top and I’ve knitted enough jumpers to be able to work out how to do the armholes. The neck would be trickier but at that stage I could use trial and error.

I finished knitting last evening and sewed it up and before I knitted the ribs round the armholes and neckline I tried it on. Oh dear.

It is a big disappointment. It makes me look huge.

Dave was encouraging and said ‘It looks very warm.’

This morning he said ‘You should know that horizontal stripes are never flattering.’

I was so disappointed that I texted two people who love clothes as much as I do - my daughter and Het - and sent a photo. What did they think?

Z said I was slim and this was not flattering, and said it would be a shame to pull it out, and could I make it into a cushion cover?

Het said 

There is no mitigation. I don’t want to bother reknitting the neckline and ribbing it and the armholes (never a pleasant task) when all it is fit for is wearing as a snowy weather extra layer. 

In answer to Het's Didn't you suspect till now? question - I was enjoying choosing the colours too much. 

Hey ho.

I will probably unravel it and knit little sweaters for child refugees, which is something I do anyway when I have nothing else to knit. 

I am reminded of the Pom Pom puppies incident in my murky past.

p.s. I may leave Twitter (X) in the future, so you won’t see me posting a link to my blog posts there. If you google me when you want to check in, you can find a link to the blog and then, once on the blog, if you click on the blog title it will show you the latest post.