Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Even smart knitters make dumb mistakes...

Or: Why you should knit a gauge swatch...

A few days ago I clued into the fact that Easter falls on the last Sunday of March this year. Being a sewer and knitter I love the tradition of making my kids new Sunday outfits. I don't always make them, or sometimes I only make part of them, but this year frugality dictates that if I want to keep this tradition I not only need to make them I have to use only what I already have on hand. (Fortunately I have a LOT of stuff on hand...)

Jake and I dug around in my yarn stash and came up with enough yarn in a comfortable nylon/acrylic blend to make him a sweater vest light enough to wear in the warmer spring weather. The down side is I don't have a pattern, so I'm just kind of winging it. Doing the math, adapting one I like to accommodate the lighter weight yarn.

Things were going along swimmingly, I was loving the stripes I'd worked out, and I had over 6" knit up when I held it up to him and realized it looked a trifle snug. I measured him and the vest, counted my stitches, and realized it was about 2" smaller around then I needed it to be.

This is where you find out what kind of knitter you are. I started out pulling and tugging, mumbling, "I can block that out," under my breath. But the more I looked at it I realized I don't want to go to all this work for something he'll wear once and then he'll out grow it!

So back to the beginning we go. I'm frogging it and starting over, because I'm stubborn that way. I'm also really glad that I'd already decided just to sew the girls dresses this year.



2 comments:

Caitlin said...

Oh man! What a bummer! Still, props to you for biting the bullet and starting over.

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