The Tale of a Broken Needle, Part 2, Or Why You Shouldn't Switch Needles in the Middle of a Project

The good news is that I finished my Mom's Hanukkah socks with time to spare:

The bad news is that, contrary to every other sock set I've knitted so far, the second one came out a bit bigger than the first:

 
Which sucks because the first was the perfect length.

Now,  I know I did the exact same thing for both of them.  Thing's like these types of cable, lace, motif, whatever patterns make it easy to write 'stop at row x' and to do so, since you're keeping track of rows and can see where you are via the pattern.  No, I'm pretty sure the difference in size is due to the fact that I had to switch needles to knit the second sock.

If you go back to this post, you'll see why that was unavoidable.  However, you'll also note that I mentioned that my gauge shouldn't be that different with another pair of nickel-plated needles.  So, I got all excited and ordered new sock needles for that size:

And just cast-ed on and went, conveniently forgetting that my analysis was based on the fact that the Knitter's Pride Nova needles and the KnitPicks Options are very similar (I wouldn't be surprised if the same manufacture makes them).  What isn't that similar are those Addi's I decided to buy because ooh, needles made for Magic Looping socks!  Must have!

So I failed, and now have two slightly different sized socks: one with a gauge of  11.25 rows per inch and another with a gauge of about 11.75 rows per inch.  And it's not like I can just rip back and adjust it so they're the same length because of the pattern; it'll be very obvious if I did that.  So...it is what it is and hopefully my Mom doesn't mind.

Of course, what I should have done, had I not been blinded by nice, new needles, was go buy the same needle brand.  But what's done is done, and it's not that far off that they're unwearable (and it's better to be bigger than smaller).

Since one of the reasons for this blog is learning from my mistakes, the moral of this story is that you should never switch needles in the middle of a project if you can help it, unless you're able to adjust for it.  And if you do have to, use the same exact needle brand and type (I shouldn't have to mention they need to be the same size too, right?).  Because your gauge really does differ between each needle, no matter if they're made of the same material, no matter how slightly, and that can be the difference between a perfect fit and slightly too big or tight.

On the other hand, the Addi Sock Rockets are really nice needles, and I loved working with them.  May have been worth it.

Sometimes the Mistakes Work in My Favor

First, it's time for a beer because in this whole post, most of it works out in the end (or maybe it was time, thought I guess it's always time because it's always beer'o'clock somewhere):

In the interest of explaining that I'm not an alcoholic, I took this picture weeks ago.  It is really too late for a beer right now.

 Anyway...a couple of weeks ago, I started the actual knitting process for the tank I'm designing.  And started it.  And started it.  But after that, I finally got past the first five rows and managed to make some progress on the garment.

I then did the absolutely correct thing and after getting a bit into it, I steam-blocked it and re-took my gauge measurements. It turns out that, of course, the gauge swatch I made, and even took measurements on just like the class I took told me to (take a bunch and average), is a lying liar that lies.  My gauge in the project is about 0.5 stitches more per inch than I used for my calculations, and 1.5 rows less.

My first thought was 'oh, great, I got to rip it out AGAIN.'  But first, I went back to my spreadsheet and changed the gauge listed there.  I looked at the new results of my calculations.  Looked back at the garment.  It didn't seem right.  If I were to cast on the number of stitches my spreadsheet now produced with the new stitch gauge, it would be too big for me.  To test this, I tried on the little bottom strip I had.  It fit as is. 

So, screw it, I'm keeping my calculations as my original stitch gauge.  This yarn has some sort of weird gauge warping ability, as this isn't the first time something's come out bigger than it should in this yarn (remember my first tank attempt?).  I should note that this is after I calculated a -1 negative ease into my calculations because I was worried about the cotton stretching too much. Oye. But that part worked out.

However, that leaves me with the row gauge being off.  Now, I had already started on the waist shaping, so changing the row gauge would mean changing the whole frequency of the shaping.  This meant I may have to rip it out, at least part way, anyway.  So, steeling myself for the inevitable, I went back to my huge spreadsheet and stuck in the new row gauge.

I then looked at the column for my custom size and went 'huh?'  It had barely changed.  All the standard size ones had changed, but my size didn't.  It didn't make any sense.  So, I kept studying it and tracing back my calculations...only to find that I had pointed to the wrong cell for a couple of the length calculations, and it was calculating a length about half of what it should be.  The waist decreases were wrong in the first place, let alone the row gauge being off.

This is where I would have thrown up my hands and walked away, except that when I fixed the calculations, the frequency of decreases it returned not only made more sense, it worked with what I had already done!  My other mistake had literally saved me from having to re-do the waist shaping already completed.

So, sometimes, they work in my favor.  If only I could say the same thing for a couple of other things I've done recently, like get a hot iron too close to an acrylic baby sweater (no, a piece of scrap linen does not work in substitute for a pillowcase), or cutting fabric (me? Cut or sew straight?  Never.  This is why I like yarn craft, you build the fabric, not cut it and attach the pieces into shapes).

And before it's asked, no, I didn't completely ruin the baby sweater with that bit of stupidity.  It's just a bit shiny and slightly different color green (yes, it looks blue in the photo.  It's not; it's green) in the front (because I was trying to get the bands to lay flat, despite the fact that that is why you knit them, but that's another post):

At least my first attempt at colorwork was successful:

So...I can still knit?  Yay!

Distractions and Old Obsessions

I figured that my next post would be the results of the test.  Didn't happen.  I still got one more swatch to do, and then I got to record everything.  I should be done next week.

And why am I not done?  Couple of reasons.  One, I hate swatching, so I'm procrastinating.  Two, I got distracted by a thousand other things.  This post is about those projects.

First off, I spent my week 1)starting the baby sweater (having done all the math for the body of the sweater, at least), 2)realizing my choice of increase sucked and therefore frogging the sweater, 3)restarting it with a new increase, 4)noticing that it looked a little big, measuring it, realizing that it was in fact an inch too big, re-measuring the gauge, realizing that I had had a gauge accident, and therefore frogging the sweater again.

This was followed by an investigation as to why I had had a gauge accident, which was found to be due to my own stupidity.  My swatch didn't lie, in fact the first swatch I did for the baby sweater was at the same gauge I was getting for the sweater itself.  The problem was that I measured it wrong the first time, and therefore every bit of math and planning I did for this pattern was 100% wrong for the size I wanted.  Yeah.  Ripping out 11 rows and having to re-do all the pattern math was not what I was aiming to do this week.

Anyway, having done that, I did get it started again:

And it is in fact the right size this time.  I checked three times.

As well, as I was knitting a garter stitch square, I was thinking about how I really shouldn't be knitting a square for my Log Cabin Afghan, and should really switch the needles back to the Crazy Cable Blanket so I could get some of that done.  Except then another train of thoughts went through my head.  You see, the baby sweater needs to be done by June (as well as the one that still needs buttons. I haven't had any luck with that).  Also, I want to knit up a small shawl using my other skein of Merino Light, and that will also need to be done by June, as I wish to wear it to my brother's bar mitzvah.  Surfing for patterns for that, I realized that I need to get my brother a present.  But what to get him...hm...what did I get for my sisters...oh, shit, I made them crocheted kippot.

This needs some back story.  You see, I originally got interested in pattern design for one reason.  When I was in high school and actually not only considered myself Jewish but was a constant participant in one of the youth groups, I wanted to make myself a kippah. I tried finding a pattern online, but that didn't net me much back in the early 2000's.  I had a vision, and I wanted that.  So, I spent most of my high school years making and trying to come up with a pattern for the perfect kippah.  Two of my best efforts of this ended up going to my sisters for their bat mitzvahs, one of them actually being very good. Unfortunately, I crocheted it as I was watching the Columbia disaster unfold on TV and therefore didn't write down what I did, and never managed to recreate it.  I, after making a bunch of failed efforts, gave up when I went to college.  This left me with a shit-ton of crochet thread that I've, for some reason, always kept around but have not done anything else with.

So guess what made a reappearance recently:

Yay stash.  Anyway, in my time on Raverly, I've noticed that they had a whole category for kippot, so I went and clicked it.  Lots of free, basic knitted and crochet patterns for kippot.  Only one problem.  None of them are for crochet thread.  So, guess what I've been doing today?

I'm once again trying to create a kippah pattern so I can also make my brother a kippah for his bar mitzvah.  In June. Oye.

Of course you may look at the start of that effort and go, 'wait, doesn't that look a little feminine for a boy?' and you would be right.  That's because after my third time starting (and after buying three different sizes of steel crochet hooks...no wonder I sucked at making kippot last time, I didn't even have the right size hook for the yarn!), I got the ripple effect that I had achieved on my only good effort last time I did this.  So I started writing down what I was doing and went with it.  Not that this little side effort hasn't given me an idea of how to make a more standard kippah, but yeah, this isn't for my brother.  Don't know what I'm going to do with it, assuming I get something out of it.  Maybe give it to my mother, since I've never made her one either (when she had her (adult) bat mitzvah, I bought her a kippah).

Now I've started something else, this leave me with four projects in progress (where did my rules go?  Threw them out when I moved, it looks like), two active which need to be done by June, and one that needs to be done by next December (given this is Crazy Cable Blanket, this isn't a sure thing.  I have to get rows done every week to potentially make that deadline).  I also have another project that isn't started that I would like to be done by June (but honestly, if I don't get my shawl it's not the end of the world).  And yarn I just bought for a hat I was hoping on making before winter ended.  And eight done squares and one in progress for a blanket I don't need, but since it's a mindless project, it gets worked on more often than Crazy Cable Blanket does.  Oh, and that swatch for my test. Do you think I've bit off more than I can chew here?