Comments on: Holy Gauge Problems, Batman!

By: Annie

Annie — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:56:50 +0000

Aha, it must be the pixies!

By: JaneC

JaneC — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 01:06:14 +0000

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.

By: leen

leen — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 12:19:45 +0000

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).

By: maggie

maggie — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 06:37:24 +0000

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

By: Annie

Annie — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:05:33 +0000

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.

By: Kristin

Kristin — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:08:29 +0000

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.

By: Betsie

Betsie — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 16:03:35 +0000

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 =)