Cardi and a life lesson

The sweater I am sharing today is from Stretch & Sew pattern #300.  It’s the same pattern I (Major Moma) used for this sweater.  I love the orange pullover and wear it all the time but I wanted to try it out as a cardigan.  I know for many of you that it is now spring and warm, but where I live, spring can still be chilly and a cardi is perfect for its versatility.

I bought this great stripe, light weight sweater knit from fabric.com (I know, I am a frequent shopper with them.).  It sewed up great.  I used some spare black knit for a facing at the neck and down the front. And the buttons were from a collection of giant Ziploc bags that my mother(our co-blogger, M) sent me.

source 

I loved the results.  I tried it on and showed the husband.

Me, as I give a silly pose in my just finished cardi:  “Look at me”

Husband, dutifully looking replies: “It is too tight, the buttons are pulling”

I was mad.  How could he say that?  How dare he tell me  … the truth.  After I stomped away angry, I looked in the mirror and saw the buttons were pulling; right at the bust line.  I hate it when shirts do that.

But the sweater turned out perfect.  It was just how I envisioned it.  Except it did not fit me.   Do you ever keep something around because it meets your ‘wants’ but not your ‘need’?  How silly it is for me to do that because I end up not using it anyway.  Or I am frustrated when it does not do what I need it to do.

I laid the sweater aside for a couple of days.



If you look closely, you can see I did not button a button.  ugh.

I then went and hugged my husband.  I told him I was really upset that he criticized the sweater.  He explained that he thought he was helping me out because he knows how much I hate pulling buttons.  And if I knew about it, I could fix it.

I should have been thankful for his honesty and confidence in me.  But I was still a bit upset that he told me something I did not want to know.

I went back to the sweater and cut it along the side seem from the bottom hem to the wrist cuff.  I cut the cuffs off.  I then found some gunmetal grey rib knit fabric.  I cut long strips about 3 inches wide. Then, I sewed them to the side seems.  I then added new cuffs to the sleeves in the same rib knit.

Now my cardi has racing stripes!

I also like how I have the hem ribbing stripe going the opposite direction.

I even like it better than the original.  And it fits.  I learned something through this sweater.  Sometimes I am too sensitive to helpful feedback.  And sometimes I am not flexible enough to welcome life’s bumps in the roads that may send me down a more interesting path.

How about you?  Do you blindly charge forward even when you are going somewhere you don’t want to be?  Or do you stop, re-assess and are willing to go down a new path … even if that means backtracking?