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February 17, 2006
Misgivings
The little voices were right. I did recheck the gauge on my swatch. However the gauge, or as the book refers to, the tension does not call for a stockinette swatch. It states the tensions (as in plural) for 1) the Yoke and sleeve pattern and 2) the Main pattern. Which means that the voices were right - the baby sweater is behemoth and probably all out of proportion and I don’t have enough yarn and I should’ve done two patterned gauge swatches instead of one stockinette swatch and I have only eight days to finish and the baby could arrive any day now.
I cannot take all the blame. I found two errors in the pattern regarding sizing and yarn requirements which I emailed the publisher. I also have heaps of questions.
Measuring
How do you measure welting? It’s so stretchy. Depending on how you lay it out (and I laid it out over and over again) it can be 44 cm or 39 cm or 47 cm. I tried counting the welts in the photo but it didn’t match. Although the photo could be the smaller size and I’m making the larger size. The other thing is that welting, as does garter, flares at the top and bottom of the fabric. While I did what I thought was the most reasonable thing - measure midway – I’m concerned about the implications for the neckline and the body. Both require picking up stitches. Won’t this cause a distortion? The designer stated that the jacket is designed for growth but can you achieve that with super stretchy welting on top and unavoidably firm color work below? I don’t know. Sounds like a fight to me.
Finishing
I added an extra stitch at the beginning and at the end of each row because I wasn’t sure how neat and smooth I could join the sides together. I thought that sewing multi color welting was going to be ornery enough as it is. Also, I floated the alternating blues but the secondary colors were too far apart to carry so I’ve also been weaving in the ends I go. With this many colors I’m concerned about bulk. I wish the designer provided some instruction/guidance as to what to do. Not to mention what kind of increases and decreases to use.
In that this is the second project to have bombed gauge wise, I think it is okay to say that Ambrosia is not the greatest substitute yarn. At least not for the yarns I typically use. For one, it doesn’t bloom. It’s not springy. While the color is vibrant somehow the texture in the swatch, the faulty swatch, is not.
This does not take away from the fact that I still don’t GAUGE properly. Will you look at the progress I made so far?
I would’ve finished the yoke by the weekend. How sucky! Can I equate this with a groin injury and bow out?
Perhaps this is a good time to focus my attention on my first commission of the year. Eight hats by March 9th. Did I forget to mention that?