Mon 9 Jul 2012
With the Mike sweater on hold waiting for sizing, the waving lace sweater has been growing by leaps and bounds. I am almost to the armhole shaping in the back panel, and finally sat down tonight to compare it to the two front pieces that I have knit.
Remember how I said it looked too big?
Yeah.
I cast on for the sweater back while we were in Florida, and since then have really only knit about two rows of it at home. That little voice in the back of my brain kept saying that it was too wide, but I double-checked my written instructions and remeasured the final width, and everything seemed fine. Of course, that was the unblocked width, but I wasn’t expecting it to stretch much with blocking. Also, I have changed sizes a lot in the past few years, and so my internal sense of what size I am is often miscalibrated. Add to that the fact that I’m trying to achieve a very different fit than usual, and all in all I wasn’t too terribly bothered about the fact that it seemed too wide. (Except when I laid the piece out in between rows and noticed again that it really was quite wide. This was usually fixed by another inspection with the measuring tape.)
Today, I realized that I was almost to the armhole and needed to compare with the front panels to double-check the decrease location. When I got home, I finally assembled all of the parts in the same place in the house, and laid the front panel on top of the back.
The back panel is one repeat too wide.
Never mind that it matches what I wrote down, what I drew, Â and the number of stitches I calculated for the cast on. Never mind that the measurements work out if you don’t expect much stretching with blocking. Despite all of the checking and double-checking, there is just no escaping the inherent rightness of that (terribly annoying) still small voice.
(It doesn’t help that it is now gloating in smug satisfaction at my expense, either.)
Good thing I have a whole week of train rides to catch up.
So now here’s something to ponder while I rip…does that front panel on the right look like it’s a different color to you?
Yes, the 2 fronts appear to be different colors but I thought it was just the light. Can you make up the difference by knitting the ribbing or whatever you choose a little wider than previously planned? I have 2 sleeves here knit up to the armhole bind off which appear to be a tiny bit too narrow at the cuffs. I won’t rip double horseshoe cable!! I will pick up and knit a few extra stitches on each side of each sleeve!!
Miss you.
I have so totally done that. More than once (or even twice) – you have my sympathies! (And yes, the worst of it is the way that little voice insists on gloating…) I, too, think that the two fronts look a bit different in color – but I thought it was the light?
Um, yes, I’m afraid so.
I would be tempted to think of designing my way out of it at this point, but there is that matter of different colors that is perplexing…
Oh no! How frustrating. I’ve knit the wrong size before, but I either realized it after I was finished (too big) and didn’t bother to fix, or it was small enough not to be a hassle to re-knit. Good luck with the re-do. And I hope the color difference is just lighting!