I cast on and started knitting the swing jacket last night! three times! and, well, the reason there seem to be less than 20 stitches sitting on my needle in that there picture is, well, I had to cast on a fourth time. and then I got tired and decided to go to bed. but I did take the time to take a picture first. priorities.

so, I came home from work to find my swatch all dry and soft. and on gauge! woohoo! after the evening's errands and household chores were out of the way, I was ready to cast on (finally!). I pulled out the pattern and was all "look at me, I'm so smart! I'm going to measure myself before actually starting this thing, because that is the smart thing to do and I am smart" instead of just making the smallest size like I normally do. because this is a french pattern. and I'm pretty sure the french are skinner than me and maybe 34/36 really means 32/34 in french. (by the way, doesn't 34/36 mean inches? why do they use inch sizes? everything else in the pattern is in metric. what's that all about? but I digress.) so! after making sure I really am a 36, I compared that to the schematic for the back of the jacket and calculated that the next size up was actually the 36. and I thought to myself "tricky french! I almost ended up with a too small jacket. good thing I managed to outsmart them."

so I cast on, feeling smug and excited, only to find out, after I'd knit one row (this is after that whole "oops, I left waaay too long of a tail" thing happened and I had to re-cast on), that I was looking at the wrong line in the pattern. instead of looking at the cast on number, I was looking at the number of stitches for after you decrease. like 4 billion rows later. so... I cast on again. and then knit another row. and then I was like "waaait a second... I didn't even look at the schematic for the front of the jacket! what are those measurements...?" turns out, in all my brilliance, I had forgotten that women have boobs and the fronts are usually wider than the backs of things. so. after some simple addition, I determined a 34/36 really does fit a 36.
yeah. sigh. perhaps one should not attempt to cast on in french when one is tired and not even a little bit french. (ok, fine, I have the english version. but still.)

side note: I realize I'm casting on for a really big project for myself when I have made really embarrassingly small progress on my brother's sweater (which shall henceforth be known as "birthday sweater" instead of the original "christmas sweater"). this is like that time my professor gave me a really really huge, overly generous extention on an independent study (lots of independent, not a whole lotta study) and I ended up doing 90% of the work the last few nights before I had to turn it in, which was roughly a year after I'd (supposedly) started. I miraculously got an A on that. so... I envision a whole lot of sweater knitting, say, in the end of march. in the meantime, I'll make a teensy bit of headway into this jacket and then inevitably get sidetracked by something else, which I may or may not be waiting to start because the yarn I ordered for it is still in the mail.