Well, I was right -- I'm behind again with the sweater. As the knitters among you know, one of the reasons that swatches are so hated is because they lie. They lie like dogs, like cheap rugs, like ... any way at all that you'd like to finish that simile. My non-swatches told me that I was getting close-to gauge (which is close enough when the sweater is for charity, because even if it's not a perfect size 10, surely someone somewhere wears a size 10.9). They promised that a US8 produced reasonably tight, warm fabric. After all, the yarn calls for a US10. Surely going down 2 needle sizes means that the sweater will be very warm.
My mistake? I believed the non-swatches. For 6 days, I looked at my knitting and wondered, but then reminded myself of what the non-swatches had said. After all, it's a mystery pattern. Maybe it's suppose to be a little lighter in this section or something.
Sadly, I finally -- after 8 inches of knitting and 6 days of wondering -- I finally stopped looking at and listening to the non-swatches and paid close attention to the sweater. I measured it. I was no longer getting close-to gauge. Gauge is 4.5 stitches/inch. The non-swatches told me I was getting 4.25; the sweater itself proved to be just a shade over 3 stitches/inch. I measured the circumference of the section. Supposed to be 32 inches. Per the non-swatches, it should have been 33.8 inches. It was actually 44 inches. Blast. To the frog pond it went, and I'm now up to 8 inches of a sweater (on US6 needles) that's only 34 inches around. That, I can live with. And the fabric is now much more dense. I'm officially behind though. I've only glanced at the next section of the sweater, which came out last Thursday. Maybe I'll catch up, but I'm not holding my breath.
On a completely unrelated note, here's your Depressing Thought of the Week:
(note: Any god metaphors spotted in the following blather were NOT god metaphors when they were written, no matter how much they seem to lean in that direction.)
I belong to a writing forum, and one of my friends there (call her A) has been having a tough time lately -- no monumental tragedies, but big problem after big problem compounded by other big problem, followed by yet another big problem, etc. Another friend (E) was encouraging her that things will have to get better, because if A's author was bothering to torture A this much, she must have a really great plotline/story/character arc. Naturally, this got me thinking about my life (because the entire world revolves around me. What, you didn't know that?) and I wondered what my author was playing at, with how things have gone for me. Then I realized something -- I think maybe I've been cut out of the book. I wasn't advancing the plot or I didn't fit in as originally envisioned or whatever. My pages are lying on the metaphorical floor somewhere, my story abandoned. It would certainly explain why I don't seem to have a plotline or a character arc, and why nothing shiny or really bad ever seems to happen to me.
