Knitting on faith or madness?

I know that I tend to knit the more idiosyncratic items. I've done an ouroborus sweater, a labyrinth sweater, a mobius scarf, a jester tentacles bag. I know I am, in fact, outside of the mainstream of knitters.

I've been editing my stash into Ravelry. And since I moved the whole stash around a month ago, I was well-reminded of intended projects just waiting to be cast on. The South Cobb Arts Alliance member show just went up, and I didn't have a thing to put in it this year. That's a testament to how much of my knitting has been for other things -- two baby sweaters for the NGKG presentation, scarves for the nieces and nephews, samples for the classes I'm teaching at the shop. I decided I really, really needed to knit something for myself. And I might as well post it on Ravelry.

So there are over 150,000 people on Ravelry right now. I decided to see what other people have done with this pattern. Hmmm. There aren't any other people who have posted this project. The book, Two Sticks and a String, is in there -- several people have knit the Aran Pullover, and it is a very nice one indeed. But nobody has knit the Puzzlemaker Jacket. I had to add it myself.

Now, I write that I am knitting this on faith for a number of reasons. One is that the pattern is written for a 46-inch chest. I believe I have mentioned in previous posts, I'm a 32A chest on my very best days. I'm changing the gauge significantly in the hopes that the final product will fit. And that's the other thing -- will it fit? Not in the sense of "fit me" but in the sense of "fit on a human form." The photograph in the book shows the model garment lying flat, rather than on a modeling form.

The sweater is worked in sections, all triangular. It is very dramatic and graphic, but it also might be one of those garments that wears you, rather than you wearing it. How much this will be a functional jacket and how much this will be art attacking the wearer remains to be discovered.

The original pattern was written for dark charcoal grey and terra cotta. Of course, I changed it to electric blue borders with a variegated yarn replacing the terra cotta and purple replacing the "interior" charcoal grey. I originally planned to use light purple in place of the dark purple, but the result didn't have a high enough contrast. My friends in the Wednesday morning knit lit group kindly helped me pick out a better choice.

At present, I'm on triangle D. The pattern goes to M. Not only is this thing modular, but it is intarsia as well. There are even a few rows of fair isle -- notice the stripes of checkerboard on the far left triangle in my picture at top. The contrasting stockinette stitch is puckering a little in the midst of the garter stitch, although I am hoping all this cotton yarn will gladly block out with a steam iron in the end. I'm beginning to understand why people aren't flocking to make this design. This may be a total triumph or a complete disaster.

Check back . . . if you dare.