No Secret Knitting

I am attempting to knit my first sweater. I have the circular needles in 2 sizes, I have cast on 254 stitches, and now I am belatedly making a gauge square because the stitches look too small to me. The genesis of this project was my overweening confidence in my knitting after blowing through several easy "fun fur" scarves, and even the completion of a somewhat lopsided modern art keyhole scarf. And, my DH had commented on a little sweater vest that DS wears occasionally, and lamented how he would love to have one that matched. Awwwwwwwwww.

I thought, Well of COURSE I could do that! and marched myself down to my local yarn store to buy an easy pattern and enough yarn to do a set of sweater vests for DH & DS. My LYS people were extremely helpful (of course they tend to be effusive in their assurances if they see another prospective customer being introduced the wide world of specialty yarns) and assured me that, yes, I can do this, and that they would help me out if I got stuck. OK.

I was going to be very industrious and work on this sweater only when DH was at work. By keeping it from him, I was going to have a beautiful sweater vest, lovingly hand-knit, and wrapped up in beautiful paper under the Christmas tree. That was the plan.

After a week of trying to skulk around, dealing with my GI issues and doctor's visits, and having precious knitting time constantly interrupted by DD ("What are you doing Mommy? Can you help me with my shoes/my game/onto the potty?") and DS (who I believe is a budding yarn monster), I gave up. (Note that DS is 9 months old, and if there is a ball of yarn in view he pursues it with the determination of a dog after a treat. He LOVES playing with yarn.)

Anyway, I finally gave up all pretense last night, shoved the pattern into the hand-knit stocking which my great-aunt knitted for DS for Christmas, and said, "Merry Christmas" to DH and handed it to him while he was cooking dinner. Somewhat befuddled, DH pulled out the knitting pattern and I explained that, if I was to have any HOPE of completing this sweater for him sometime before 2015, I would have to knit whenever I had the chance and thus he would know what I was making. Merry Christmas. DH laughed and said thank you very much, and he is looking forward to wearing it. He sagely advised me not to attempt to alter the pattern to put some ribbing at the neck, but to keep it as simple as possible.

So now I am done skulking around with circular needles and a ball of blue wool stuffed into my purse or laundry basket. I can knit out in the open, and I can run off to the LYS to ask for help, as I inevitably will. Just as soon as I finish this gauge square, which I believe is going to show me I need to use #8s instead of the #6s. Which means casting on 254 stitches again. Oh goody. Who started me on this knitting business again?