The Faint Strains of Taps on the Kazoo

Hey remember that handspun sweater that I started? Well turns out here's a story there.

Ok, so it started with the back. It's a flared hem, so I had to start out with 206 stitches. It narrows itself down over the first 66 rows to a bit over 100 stitches across. Anyhoo, I was knitting it on straights which I know are not that popular, but I still like'em. Well You have to kind of bunch up the back of a sweater on a straight because it's shorter than the width of the knitting right? No biggie!

Soooooooooooooooooo, after I got to 99 rows, I thought to myself, "Hmm, this does seem a bit wide even for my fluffy butt." so I went into my closet and measured the back of a cardigan that fits me pretty well. The back was 23 inches. Then I tried to spread out and measure the back I was knitting. After a bit of a try, I thought "Oh SSHHHHHIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!", so just to be sure I took the knitting off the needle and onto some waste yarn.

Welp, turns out that the knitting was EIGHT INCHES too wide, just on the back! Now the cardigan I measure fits with some positive ease already, so DUDE!!! This cardigan was going to have upwards of prolly 20 inches of extra fabric on it! Can you say SWIMMING???????

So, without trying to figure out if I could fix it, or what could I do, I frogged ruthlessly! Then I swatched. It's so crazy too because I am a swatcher normally, but probably 80% of the time, my gauge comes out first time, so I didnt swatch. Big mistake - HUGE! So I can't even believe this myself, but when i went ahead and swatched I had to go down three needles sizes. I've never had that before. i know I've gotten to be a pretty loose knitter but holy crap! Here's a photo of my sweater in progress.


Once I figured out what size needles I need, i realized I didn't actually OWN them. I have size 2s, but only dpns, so i went to Knitpicks and ordered me some nickel plated ones. I know everybody is crazy about the options, but I knit so much faster with those nice smooth nickel plated babies!

So in the absence of a sweater to continue on, I started a sock with some of my handspun. It's just a boring old waffle pattern. Fits my foot just perfectly and I've just gotten three rows up the leg.


I've decided to do some serious dyeing over the weekend, so better come back and see ;)