Holy Gauge Problems, Batman!
Home sick today with a terrible headache and general fogginess but not Meniere’s, thank goodness. About halfway through the day I realized it was allergies and shut all the windows and turned on the air conditioning. I love having the windows open but, man, the pollen is flying out there. I already feel better.
The camo sweater is driving me nutty. It has taken on a life of its own and apparently is determined to be 48″ no matter what I do. Measured at the waist shaping where it should be 18″ it is 21″. Here is the top:
Yup, it expanded out to 48″ around again. Gauge is somewhere around 3-3.5 stitches an inch. I have no idea what to do. Smaller needles? Less stitches? Give up and let the sweater be huge?
In the meantime, I’ve noticed that the waist shaping messes with the color variations, look closely:
The change in stitches per row for the waist shaping makes the colors more scattered whereas for the first and last three inches the colors are more streaky looking and I like that better. So Camo Sweater version 3 will have no waist shaping.
Also, the ribbing:
It pulls in too much. Yeah, I know, that’s what ribbing does but I don’t need it drawing in that much or drawing attention to my rear for that matter. So I’m thinking a simple rolled edge for v.3.
But what the heck should I do for the gauge? Cast on fewer stitches? Use smaller needles? Seriously, suggestions please!
Smaller needles… or just live with it… that decision will have to be up to you =)
The color problem is called “pooling” and the most common suggestion for fixing that (from the beginning) is to work from two different balls of the same yarn or to work from opposite ends of the same ball on alternating rows. This helps stagger the colors more and break up the splotches.
Though, I haven’t done much work with hand-dyed and varigated yarns, so perhaps Kara will have some better suggestions =)
Comment by Betsie — Friday, March 30, 2007 @ 11:03 am
Yeah, Betsie’s suggestion for dealing with messed up color variations is one I’ve commonly seen. Although what you’ve highlighted looks more like the malabrigo color patterning than the larger color splotches.
Oh, and before you decide to re-knit this to fit better, did you wash your swatch? I noticed that with my Malabrigo squares, they totally changed after washing and laying flat. What I had measured to be 8×8″ squares using a gauge swatch, turned out to be 9×7″.
You know, I’m thinking that a slightly bulky sweater would work with those camo colors. You would end up with one of those sweaters that you wear for comfort
Whichever decision makes you happiest when you think of it, you should do it.
Comment by Kristin — Friday, March 30, 2007 @ 11:08 am
Thanks for the advice and insight, gals. Yes, I washed my swatch and it shrank up slightly but not enough. I’ll post my decision soon.
Comment by Annie — Sunday, April 1, 2007 @ 11:05 am
Not knitting related here, but I just found your website through archive.org, and I now either want to be you, or be your best friend.
Just wanted to let you know
Comment by maggie — Monday, April 2, 2007 @ 1:37 am
one way to control the waywardness is to have ribbs running along the length. generally adds a pleasing texture to the sweater and also keeps it controlled (non expanded).
Comment by leen — Thursday, April 5, 2007 @ 7:19 am
I sympathize with the gauge problems. My mother once commented that my knitting is so tidy it looks like it was done by machine, and yet every scarf is wider at one end than at the other, and hats always have a funny spot where they expand at an uneven rate even though I increased or decreased pretty steadily. It’s like the pixies came in the night and knitted two rows and threw the whole thing off.
Comment by JaneC — Saturday, April 7, 2007 @ 8:06 pm
Aha, it must be the pixies!
Comment by Annie — Sunday, April 15, 2007 @ 8:56 pm