Category: Knit Page 24 of 88

Never ever try to do math, even simple math, when you are tired.

Case in point. I measured; I swatched for yoke sweater. All good. 8 sts to 2″. Easy. Just plug that number there into the EPS worksheet. Yup. Plug it in. Okay, pull out the calculator and see how many stitches to cast on. Hmm. 289 sts. Odd number because I wanted a non-thinking seed stitch edging. Just plain old knit/purl all the way around. No need to do anything different at the end/beginning of each round. Easy peasy. I’m so clever.

That should have been my first clue. 289 stitches. I cast on using a needle 2 sizes larger because I’m heeding Janine‘s advice of creating more of a bell shape by using larger needle sizes near the hips and shift down to the correct needle size for gauge for the body.  No complicated math for determining K’ (dubbed K-prime — secondary K number) and then figuring out the decreases back down to my K number. I knitted a few rounds. All the while, thinking, dang! That’s a lot of stitches. I knit on. There appears to be quite a bit of extra fabric here. Hmm. I knit on. Finally, after 3-4 rows, I go to bed.

This morning. I took a look at it. There does seem to be a lot of extra fabric. I did a quick measurement. 3.5 sts/in. That doesn’t seem too far from my 4 sts/in of the original gauge. As a matter of fact, it should provide the ease I wanted around the hips. I plugged it into the calculator. 82.5″. What? I double check. Yup. 82.5″. How could I have gone so wrong?

I looked back at my notes. Yup. 8 sts/2 in. My brain figured out that this is 4 sts/in, but I plugged the darn 8 into the worksheet instead of 4.

Moral of this story? Don’t do math, especially simple math, when you are tired. I can’t even blame alcohol since I didn’t have any. Just plain old exhaustion. Maybe alcohol would have helped.

Okay. got to get back to casting on 145 sts. A much more sane number of stitches. Although 144 pleases me better (12 squared), but I still want the brainless seed stitch edging. But 145 is better than 143, because it’s divisible by 5. Yes, there’s a little bit of Monk in me.

Not a whole lot of exciting things happening here. I can’t seem to focus on much lately, and haven’t wanted to commit to a new project with so many unfinished projects around. So, instead of actually picking up one of those UFOs and working on them, I created UFOs.

Huh? Create UFOs yet not start on new projects? How does that work?

Case in point. I mentioned that I would have liked the new vest to be a few inches longer? I had another skein of the pink yarn, so there really wasn’t any reason to rip out the old waist and re-knit.  Now, it’s 2″ longer and my lower back is much happier, thank you.

Another vest on my vest shelf that hasn’t gotten a lot of wear because something was always “off” about it. That’s the Timber Frame vest from 4 years ago.

See all that rippling around the neck and armholes? Barb always said that I should rip them out and re-knit. She’s right. But I’ve never done it. But since I was in a ripping mood, I pulled it out and started to work away at it.

The neck? I reduced the neck ribbing by 1/2″. I probably should have ripped it all the way back and reduce it by a few stitches, but I thought to try this first.

The armholes? I ripped it back and reduced the number of stitches by about 10% (1 stitch for every 10, or there abouts) and knitted a much shorter ribbing.

Here’s what it looks like now. I only finished right armhole (left side on this picture). See how much better it looks already? I really think I can live with the neckline. But the other armhole? I’m thinking that my neck is off centered and I may have to redo that arm steek. But if I cut more, then the arm scythe will be much deeper on one side than the other. Dang. I knew I didn’t like that willy-nilly steek method! Looks like there will be something wonky no matter what.

Hmm. Maybe I can re-cut the neckline wider toward the left, thus centering it. Worth considering.