Next Friday I’ll be in NJ, where I grew up. I’m going to a wedding. Boy was I smug when I found a dress on sale, a full month in advance. No procrastinating for me! I win!

Problem: Yesterday morning I tried the dress on, and discovered that the dress print is in fact orange, not red. This was unfortunate, because I’d set aside a red silk cardigan to go with it. Whoops.

Solution: I quickly tried on my cadre of minisweaters and verified that the Anthropologie Capelet looked pretty good with the dress, shape-wise. Color-wise, not so much. I ran down to the Knitter’s Playground and got myself a Capelet’s worth (held double) of this:

The Diana Collection? Yarns Northwest? Never heard of it! But it has a really pleasant hand, a subtle sheen, and this rad slight color and thickness variation. I don’t know how available this yarn is to people who don’t live in the Davis, CA area, but if you’re looking for some gorgeous Cash Iroha substitute for your next Hourglass sweater, you probably want this.

Problem: I started knitting it doubled-up, and it looked okaaayyyyyy, but a little bit arts-and-crafty. I don’t want to go to a wedding in silk and merino, only to have it look like I learned to knit five minutes ago and I own only jumbo stakeneedles. The yarn looks awesome when I knit a single yarn. Should I size down to size 7? It really wants me to just knit a freakin’ minisweater on size 7 needles, and I usually don’t argue with my yarn.

I think you can tell by my relative progress that I am leaning toward the impractical decision. In fact, my real decision now is whether to go with the known quantitity of regular sleeves or dabble in puffed sleeves. Should people with big arms even be wearing puffed sleeves? They’re pretty much the knitted equivalent of the balloon my upper-arm bulk would put up to tell its neighbors where the party is.

It’s going to be a little bit quiet here for the next two weeks. After I’m done getting my act together for this wedding, I’m taking a cross-country drive to move my sister from NJ to CA, where she will set up residence in the empty room in our house. On the upside, I’ll now have a live-in knitting buddy. On the downside, that’s one more person in this house who can kick my ass at Smash Bros.