got gauge?

no damn it, i don't. because i want to create decent centre-pull balls, i am waiting to start the hourglass sweater. instead, i attempted to get gauge last night for the kyoto sweater. and now i find myself doing math.

the only way i get gauge is if i go up two needle sizes from what the pattern calls for and from what the yarn needs. i like a pretty dense looking fabric and going up two whole needle sizes makes everything look all loosey-goosey.

i've even tried knitting different swatches with different needle types -- metal circs and my denise plastic circs. i do not like knitting with the denise needles. the plastic is cheap and every stitch feels like work to me; there is no sliding along the needles and the plastic almost seems to grab at the yarn. but because of that, i do knit looser on the denise.

either way, i end up with a loosey-goosey-looking piece of knitting.

i re-read stephanie's chapter on gauge for inspiration. one of the mason-dixon ladies posted recently on the follies of ignoring gauge. what really drove her point home was her posting a picture with two halves of her sweater sitting side by side, one side with gauge and one side without. the size difference between them was staggering.

here's where my poor math skills come in. i was planning on knitting the second or third size (depending on my research. i think i remember someone posting that the sweater grew due to the weight of the cotton so smaller would be better). right now i am working on figuring out how many extra stitches i'd have, and therefore how many extra inches i'd have, if i knit on the 3.75 mm needles. depending on the answer to that, factoring in potential sweater growth, do i just adjust the pattern to accommodate the extra amount of stitches? do i knit a smaller size and hope for the best? already my head is swimming.