Saright....or Sarong?

I like to knit. I think we all know that. It truly is a form of active meditation for me, if you consider "meditation" to be the ceasing of the cacophonic carrying-on provided 24/7 by the sock puppets in my head. And I do. I find it infinitely relaxing to get into a rhythm of knit & purl and just let the world go on around me.

Sometimes, though, there's one particular voice that breaches the levee and infiltrates the inner recesses of my quiet time. This particular puppet suffers from fits of grandiosity and is so charismatic that she has no difficulty pulling me right over the edge into her delusions of grandeur. This voice emerges when I'm lazily perusing knitting patterns with no intention whatsoever of knitting any of them. C'mon, you know how that goes--sometimes it's nice to just look at pretty--or tasty--things without placing the burden of follow through on one's shoulders. Well, she--and I'm sure it's a "she"--waits until she sees a lovely, but complicated, knitting pattern and then whispers in my ear, "Hey, you could make that, you know." Oh, it doesn't matter if it's a fair isle or entrelac pattern, or something I've never even tried before, this voice remains confident that I--not her--can do whatever learning and hard work might lie ahead to create the knitted item so that she can wear it. She is such a bee-yotch, and let's call her Suzy, shall we??

Me: (Flipping, flipping, flipping through knitting recipes, smiling at all the lovelies)

Suzy: Oh, look, how pretty! You could make that, you know.

Me: No, no, I can't do that. I don't even know how to do that stitch. Plus I don't want to. (Tries to flip to next page)

Suzy: Yes, you can (flips page back). It won't even be that hard. (Saying in her sing-song voice) You'll get to buy some new yaaaarn (hitting me right in my Achilles heel, damn her).

Me: If you shut up I'll buy you something pretty.

Suzy, after brief pause for contemplation: I don't want you to buy it. I want you to make it. You can do it!!

Me: Oh, I don't know...(Interest starts to pique and I take a closer look at the picture) You think so? Really?

Suzy: Oh, sure! And we can go by that yarn store you like and find some really pretty yarn! Come on, let's go!

And that's all it takes to get me in the car, headed dead-on toward a yarn-buying bender. Just a little pouting and cajoling and I've been duped into believing that I am capable of doing something far beyond my actual abilities. It's embarrassing, but true, and I'm sure you're all going to use this little piece of information to get me to do your bidding in the future.

Anyhoo, this is how I came to be knitting a sarong. Suzy decided this would be a fun gift for my nieces, since we're all meeting up at the beach next week. And I not only jumped right into her little ruse, I gleefully enrolled my sister, who is a yarn goddess like nobodies business, and who volunteered to crochet beach bags and decorate flip-flops for the girls. Her items will look gorgeous, I assure you, and thank goodness I have her as my knitting mentor. She's a great encourager who doesn't let me give up, which I would do in a split second if left to my own devices.

Here's the pattern that Suzy chose:


Pretty, isn't it? It's called a sarong, but I think it's worthy of being called a saright.

Mine, on the other hand, I have dubbed a sa-wrong. Here's why:


WTF??! In a dazzling display of poor judgement, I did not knit a swatch so that I could test out the stitch before committing to it, nor did I even choose a good, steady, reliable yarn to make it with. Oh, I chose a pretty one, to be sure, but one containing a variety of textures. I call it my Multiple Personality Yarn.

See, it has this one, which I call "Ladder":


Then there's this one, called "Thick and Unwieldy":


And this goodie, named...uh, I don't have a name for this one. Let's call it "Tulle":

And my personal favorite, which I call "The Devil's Spawn":

Let me just say again that THESE WERE NOT FOUR SEPARATE YARNS, THEY WERE ALL ONE YARN!! It was the damnable eyelash yarn that did me in. Sometimes I inadvertently separated it and knit two stitches out of one; sometimes I knit two pieces of it together; sometimes I just shot right past it without knitting it at all. The end result was that I ended up with a gazillion extra stitches that gave the sa-wrong a really funky look. And not in the good way. Feh. Double feh.

But you know that Suzy did not let me give up here. No, that girl wanted a pretty. And I know that you're all caring people and are undoubtedly concerned about the outcome of this high knitting drama, so let me give you some comfort--there is a happy ending. Suzy and I, me in a fit of yarn annoyance and her in a fit of Where's my pretty??, went back to the yarn store and did a little more prudent selection of fiber for attempt #2. And look!

Pretty, eh? Eh?? EH?? That's what I thought. And don't dawg me about the fact that the curly bobbles have been replaced with good old-fashioned fringe. I was at my limit, man.

If one were looking for a moral to the story, one could say that perseverance leads to success. Or that necessity is the mother of invention. Or that if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Or even that things aren't always as difficult as they seem at the outset. Or, maybe we could just give a deep sigh and recognize the incontrovertible proof that this project illustrates: Suzy was right all along. Sigh.

The bee-yotch.