Sweater Disaster

 

I just don’t get it.  I took the old sweater piece completely off the needles yesterday and measured the gauge and got 5.25 stitches to the inch.  So I rewrote the pattern and cast on for the new gauge.  I’ve got about an inch of the hem done, and it is just barely bigger than my 40" circular.  Not anywhere near the 54" circumference I was aiming for.

 

I’m completely baffled on this, so today I’m going to pick up a 4.25mm Clover circular at the LYS and do a rainbow-striped scarf (knit like a tube).  Once that comes off the needles, I’ll measure it and use my gauge to go from there.  I can’t remeasure the thing I took off yesterday, because Alex has been using it as a lasso and it’s all stretched out!

Overindulging in Bubbly

 

Alex found a recipe on the internet for a good bubble-blowing soap.  It contains equal parts corn syrup, dish soap and water.  We tried it out today and got some very impressive bubbles that had a silvery shine to them rather than the iridescent types you normally get.  Here is my best attempt at capturing one on film.

 

Crying for Perfection

 

Yes, I’m crying, but it’s all in the pursuit of perfection.

 

Now that I take a good look at this sweater – while it’s on the needles and I’m doing the hem – I am seeing lots of macgyvered spots that really look junky.  When I cast on, for example, I still thought my gauge was 7 sts/in.  It was actually 6.5.  Doesn’t seem like much of a problem, but it’s an additional 4.5" around.  So then I thought, ah, well, instead of ripping out what I’ve done and starting over, I’ll just add in some decreases.  Well, my decreases look ugly, and I spaced them too close together, which means if I keep decreasing at this rate, it will be too narrow for me in the chest.  I can’t un-decrease by dropping and picking up, because my current active row would not have enough yarn play to fill in all the new stitches that will be created. 

 

Therefore, I’m going to bin what I have done and start over.  I’ll post more pictures when I get past the stage I pictured below.

 

Sadly yours,

 

D.

Closure

 

I don’t know about you, but I have this mentality that Chris always calls "closure-oriented."  Here I was, knitting happily along, trying to figure out what to do about the hem, but meanwhile just happily working on the color part.  I decided what to do for the hem and found that I just could NOT work on the color part any longer – I HAD to stop, put the color work on holders, and do the hem (I need the same needle to do the hem).  I don’t know why I couldn’t simply have knit until the whole sweater was done, then gone back and put the hem on, but it was out of the question.  So, today I got 2 rows of "two strands 5 Red and one strand 10 Red" done before I had to quit that and work on the hem.

 

I expect to be done with the hem and everything by, say, Sunday; I’ll try to put up a picture then.

Today’s Progress on the N.R.S.

 

Here we have a picture of the sweater so far.  On the needles, the first row of "three strands of 5 Red."  I admit it doesn’t look much different from the last picture, but that’s because the red-purples are so strong.