I'm absolutely sure that I am by far not the first person to blog about the importance of the gauge swatch. Be that as it may, this post will be about....ta dah! The Importance of the Gauge Swatch (notice the capital letters). I started the Urban Aran Cardigan for J with a couple of faulty assumptions.
Assumption #1: Since the pattern was written for a woman, I should automatically make the largest size since I was knitting it for a man.
Assumption #2: Since I read about making this sweater with Elann Highland Peruvian Chunky, using needle sizes 10 & 10.5, I could go ahead with that and assume it would work.
Not!
First of all, I now realize that the XL women's size shall we say "chestal" measurements may be significantly larger than an average size man's. Second of all, just because someone else uses a particular needle size does not mean it will work for me (or that said person did not make other non-obvious alterations.)
I knit about 3 inches of the pattern, which actually took quite a while since I did some major pattern reconfiguring when I thought I probably should do a measurement. Hmmm, I don't think the intended recipient is 56 inches around- more like 40". I suggested to him that we could just shrink the sweater (everyone likes cozy felted sweaters, right?), but he didn't go for it.
I got out the smaller needles, swatched, and ripped the whole thing out. Square one here I come! (This photo is from the new, hopefully correctly sized, attempt). Isn't it cute how it made a little heart when I laid it out to photograph?
Friday, February 01, 2008
Made with Love (or I should have swatched!)
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2 comments:
I couldn't agree with you more, I too have learned the hard way that doing a tension sorry guage swatch is the most important part of almost every project, glad you found that out before it was too late
Sorry to hear about your frogged sweater! I am about to embark on an Urban Aran for my husband (that's how I found your blog), and I am really curious to see how your project progresses- I don't want to knit the fronts and back separately, either (the only thing I hate more than swatching is seaming). (Un)fortunately, I'll be making the XL size no matter what (provided I get gauge)- it matches the measurements of my husband's favorite sweater.
But look on the bright side- you got some practice with the cable pattern, and it should go faster now, right? :)
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