On the one hand, curses aren't real; but on the other, the yarn is obviously cursed
Once upon a time I made a sweater for my BIL and had so many accidents and fuckups that each stitch of the sweater was knitted at least two times, some of them three. As a result, I referred to this sweater afterwards as the Cursed Sweater.
But I didn't know what I was talking about.
The purple yarn that is the subject of this post is the TRUE cursed yarn/sweater(s).
A brief summary of the mishaps that have occurred with this cursed yarn:
Shortly after I started Sweater 1 (Fickle Heart by Justyna Lorkowska, a very well-written pattern), summer 2019: my MIL died while the house we were buying with her was half renovated, and then a pipe exploded, flooding our basement and destroying our hot water heater, and then the septic tank under the garage overflowed, flooding the garage with sewage. In the confusion, the knitting got lost.
Spring 2020: I found the knitting and finished most of the body before I discovred I'd made a small error near the center of the back lace panel which could not be fixed without unraveling about 50% of the body and reknitting.
Spring 2020: I ordered a zipper for the project and it got lost in the mail. I ordered a replacement zipper, which arrived.
Fall 2020: Put the knitting aside when MIL's estate cleared probate and we had to try to finish renovating and moving to a short deadline. We ended up moving all our stuff from one half of the duplex to the other in about two days and in the process lost my favorite sweater, a bunch of MIL's kitchen stuff, the living room door (don't ask) and the (SECOND) zipper for this project.
Fall 2021: I gave up on ever finding the zipper and ordered a THIRD zipper. I blocked the sweater and discovered a moth had eaten a tiny hole in the center of the back lace panel while it was in a drawer waiting for the zipper and it started unraveling right away, meaning it would have had to be at least 70% redone to fix. I tried it on and it was also too tight, while the holes in the lace were too big and let in a bunch of cold air.
Fall 2021: @waxjism frogged the sweater for me (unraveled it) and I chose a different hoodie pattern without any lace (Zingiber by Susanna Winter, also a great pattern) and started Sweater 2. I knitted about half, then succumbed to Pandemic Anxiety/Depression.
November 2022: I redesigned the hood about five times before finding out that I didn't have enough yarn to finish unless I wanted to use the yarn from the pockets and have a sweater without pockets. Frogged the hood.
I tried it on to place the zipper and discovered the zipper wouldn't work anyway because the fit was too tight over the hips. Ordered toggle buttons instead. Used the yarn from the hood to finish the front edge.
Wore it for a few weeks before giving up. The toggles didn't work right, the fit still wasn't right over the hips, and my neck finishing looked dumb.
April 2023: Bought a third patttern (Lenu by Ankestrick), a saddle-shoulder pullover (less yarn than a hoodie, and I had lost some to moths. Also every time you frog a sweater you lose a bit of the yarn). Started Sweater 3. I only knitted a few inches of it before having doubts and weighing the yarn to estimate how much I had left and discovering there wasn't enough to finish it.
November 2024: Weighed the yarn to estimate yardage again and determined there wasn't enough for a sweater with sleeves, so I picked a sweater vest pattern that I liked (Beneath Waves by Johanna Kunin). I was pretty excited because I'd never knitted bobbles before. I finished the sweater last night and wove in all the loose ends BEFORE holding it up and noticing for the FIRST TIME that the back of the armholes looked funny, almost like a racerback. I examined it and realized I had accidentally left out one whole horizontal repeat of the lace pattern on the back. There are four on the front and three on the back. And I had knitted the ENTIRE VEST without noticing!!
As @waxjism said, it will be safer to get the entire sweater out of the house. (Burning would be ideal but wool doesn't burn easily and it probably wouldn't burn up in our woodstove.) Wool does compost, though, so we might do that.
Although I protested that curses are not real, I eventually agreed that even if the curse is actually my subconscious mind sabotaging me it still has devastating effects, and it would be better not to risk it destroying another sweater.
In fact, I have two balls of it leftover, but I'm not sure I dare use them in a stashbusting project in case they ruin it.
The yarn (Svarta Fåret Ulrika in Lila Melange) was purchased originally for its exact color match to a cheap cotton pullover hoodie from H&M (2008ish?) that I loved passionately and wore to pieces, and I really still have my heart set on it being a hoodie anyway. I'll start over with new yarn.
"RIP to a real one (was it real?)" - @waxjism
