that “g” word in knitting

Sorry folks, I’ve been pretty bad at posting.  Like, almost a month late!!  I promise I would have posted sooner.

But that dreaded “g” word in knitting got me again:

This. My favorite. from nataliedee.com

About that Norwegian-type-sweater-thing I’m attempting to knit – if you can’t tell by the above comic, I swear the gauge changes every time I measure it.  I got about 5″ into the plain blue body section and realized my 42″ bust sweater grew into about 50″ or so.  And this sweater already had some ease calculated into that 42″ size.

I ended up starting with size US #4 needles for the body and US #5 for the color sections (#5 is the called-for needle size).  I went down to a US #3 for the plain sections after the below ripping-out.

Dug out the small circular needles to pick up stitches around…

Rip, rip, rip went my yarn.  (And part of my soul.  Just kidding…I think.)

About 20 minutes to take out a few weeks’ worth…

Back again to knitting – but couldn’t pull myself to totally rip out the whole thing, as that bottom ribbing took me 6 hours!

So after knitting 16″ from the edge, I realized (again) that somehow my sweater was still too big…oh, and it was barely too long.  Double whammy!  I ripped out a little over an inch, so it wasn’t as bad as the first time.

As I was contemplating the enormous size of the bust, I also realized the directions call for set-in sleeves, which would have been all fine and dandy, but on me with this bust size, the sleeve seams would have sagged below where they are supposed to fit on top of the shoulder line.  I wouldn’t want sloppy-looking set-in sleeves – and that would be a real clue the sweater wasn’t fitting properly. 😉

Gah!  I didn’t want to rip again, this time all the way to the cast on.

So, after a stressful night, I figured I could turn it into a drop-shoulder sleeve, as those are supposed to “drop” off the shoulder (duh).  Luckily I took a Norwegian-style sweater class earlier this year, and we went over a little about modifying patterns and the construction of sleeves – otherwise, I think I’d be dead in the water knitting right about now.  Which I still kind of am, since I don’t know how this will exactly turn out!

After looking at some older fair isle sweater patterns to see their construction, I plan to leave 10″ for my armhole length, so I calculated my row gauge to see how many rows that will be.  I subtracted that from the bind off row number.  At that row number, I will cast on some stitches for steeks.  When the body is done, I will probably pick up stitches around the holes and knit down.

(Even though that will be “different” from my body – the body knit stitches go up!!  Drats.  But by then I might not care, as I will just want to be done with the sweater.)

Well, doesn’t look too bad…

Back to knitting. I think I need to start a pair of socks or a hat to de-stress… 🙂