ms. hedda and i are doing a green gables KAL. i'm so excited! i love that sweater.
here's where i am:
swatching with some rowan all seasons cotton. i bought the cotton for a song, furthing justifying the purchase by intending to knit a sweater for baby j. but really, i bought the yarn because it was so cheap and i had been eyeing it up for a while. i checked the shade card for it on yarn index and the color is called "pansy". not exactly masculine...
this is all to make me feel less guilty about absconding with the yarn for my own purposes.
here's more knit math fun. the rowan yarn calls for 4.5 to 5.5 mm to get 16-18 st / 4 inches.
the green gables pattern calls for 4 mm to get 20 st / 4 inches.
according to my measurements, i'd be a medium but everything i've read about green gables (thanks to the official KAL), indicates that this sweater fits small unless you yourself are very small and trim. i am neither, being busty and curvy. so i should probably make a large.
except that the pattern calls for 4 skeins brown sheep cotton for a large. the cotton fleece is 215 yards/100g ball. that's 860 y/400g.
i have six skeins of the rowan all seasons cotton 98 yards/50 g ball. that's 558 yards/300 g.
but what if i made the medium? that's 645 yards/300 g. still not enough yarn. i could go back to LYS and see if they have two more skeins of the pansy colors (i think they do maybe) in the same dye lots (can lightening strike twice?). if i made the medium, since i am so far off gauge with the rowan yarn, the sweater would actually fit bigger... right? i need to do more math and i need to swatch with different needle sizes...
here's what i love about knitting. and maybe this makes me a process knitter. if it doesn't fit i can rip it out and i can try again. i love that. there's nothing permanent about it, really. this knowledge makes me rash. i make decisions on wonky math that i would never in a million years make otherwise. because in the end the worst thing that could happen is that it is too small and i have to knit it again. i don't see it as wasted time at all. i knit in front of the tv so my time is being wasted anyway. i knit so i feel like less of time waster in front of the tv. it all works out very well for me.
i do wish the pattern has some more measurements included in it though. it'd be nice to have a bit more to go on.
5 comments:
So, does that mean that if I'm getting 22 st/4 inches, I need follow the pattern for larger size? Or do some multiplication to figure out what the pattern would be with a different gauge? Yikes! My head hurts. I shall read the official knitalong.
And post about my own weekend swatching adventures as soon as I can!
Also, it's good to hear about your attitude on frogging, Guru.
the only way we'll really know is just to start knitting. we've swatched. it has told us that we know nothing and cannot do knit math at all. so let's throw caution to the wind and start already.
i'll say this about gauge. i've knit garmets without doing a swatch at all. and they fit. fate? luck? kismet? will it all come to bite me in the ass one day? probably. will this be it? only one way to find out :)
Okay! I'll dive in as soon as I can!
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