The best laid plans...

So I have a confession to make... I have fallen a little out of love with my Philippa jumper. I felt really excited about it when I began, and it was going really well (by this I mean few mistakes were made and it looked like the picture on the front). But I seem to have discovered the hard part of knitting something, that you can't check it as you go for fitting (especially with a vintage pattern like the one I used), meaning my Philippa kind of looked like this when I tried it on...

I know what you're thinking... that looks fine (if not a little short in the length), but it's hiding a secret...

Check out that extra under arm fabric!! If I'd been sewing this I would have gone back to the jumper and cut out a chunk to make it fit properly... but how do you do that when it's knitted from one strand of wool and involves unravelling a weeks worth of work!!
Gah!!

I might have tried to ignore it... but that's a huge amount of extra material! and it just feels odd!!

Another issue with it is the yarn that I decided to use... I did no research for yarn weight and knew nothing about DK or Aran or Chunky etc. so just used this (very lovely and soft) wool I found on eBay. My mum spotted this as soon as she saw the front side of the jumper, she said it was too heavy, that it would end up being very warm because of this (always listen to your mother). This bad boy feels like body armour when worn, it is very thick and heavy!! I can only imagine what it would be like when wet!!

You can see just how impressed I am with this situation. I feel very angry about this, it's my first big project and it has gone belly up (or armpit up as it were). So what now? I could unravel it back to the point before I began increasing it for the underarm (the rest fits fine), I could frog the whole lot back and start again. Or (as I suspect I'm going to do) I could leave it in a pile in the corner until I have the heart to take decisive action with this labour of love.

So the action I have decided to take is option 3, in the meantime I have begun a new project (from a modern book which includes the finished item size and everything), I have researched the yarn type and checked the measurements and everything.

I really feel that I need to make something that I can actually wear, this is the whole point I got into making stuff. Plus I really want to succeed with the knitting a jumper idea, just to keep my faith in knitting.


Sneak peek of my next attempt