Sunday, March 16, 2014

It's My Own Damn Fault.......

So, I'm not a fan of swatching. Never. Or reading yardage, ounces or grams on the cakes I so carefully weigh and tag.  I fly by the seat of my pants.  Well, my pants are on fire.

I was knitting a vest of raspberry Shetland.  Got to the arm holes, roughly 17" into the thing, when I realized.....I'm not going to have enough yarn. Now I start reading all the tags on the 7 cakes.  Yeah....this isn't going to work.  So, what to do.......I'll try the next size smaller and use smaller needles.  Yeah. That'll work.  That's the ticket.

Off I go.  Put the 17" on the needles aside, pick up a smaller set, mark the smaller size and begin.

After 10" into the re-configured vest, a horrible feeling comes over me. I'm beginning to think.....I'm not going to have enough yarn. Oh, be serious. Continue.  Now it's roughly 12", a few more rows and I can begin the armhole shaping, and.....I'm definitely not going to have enough yarn.  In the meantime, I have ripped out the first attempt.  The 3 balls are sitting there; there is a cake and 1/2 left for the newly knitted half, and I'm trying desperately to convince myself that it'll make it....probably down to the last 2" of yarn.

I don't think so.  There's a tweedy yarn in my stash....6 cakes.....that just might work as a complimentary color.  I can alternate the solid with the tweed.  There should be enough damn yarn to get this thing done.  Just have to rip the 12" and start over.  My eyes are starting to glaze over.  My brain is on overload. 

There's a lesson in all of this.  Swatch?  Never!!  I should've gone with my first inclination and used both yarns from the very beginning.

Meanwhile, here's this:

                                                  The cursed vest.


                                                        The pattern.


 Finished hat and mitts. Yay!!

 Yarn destined for my Aran cardigan.

 The rolags blended from the hand dyed Border Leicester below.

                                          Said hand dyed BL.

Next time....pictures of the almost finished vest, using the 2 different yarns.  Seriously.  No. Really.  It's gonna happen.  Trust me.  I refuse to be defeated.



4 comments:

Judy said...

LOL Knit On!!! You must have a ton of patience! Love the color of the raspberry and green. Can't wait to see the vest.

Linda said...

Thanks Judy! That's the inspiration I need to keep going on it....damn the yardage; it can be frogged whether it's 1/2 done or totally done!

Unknown said...

That's such a shame, about running out of yarn. I seldom swatch, but if I'm making a sweater, I always do. As much as I dislike "wasting" time by swatching, in the end, it can quite often SAVE time too. I will give you credit though, for your determination to stick with it, until you get it done. I just hope when you do get it finished, that it fits well. LOL

Love that green yarn. Looking forward to seeing what it will become. :)

Linda said...

Thanks Sandie! You're right about saving time; I just get so excited about starting a project that I'm willing to take the chance. Hope you're having a great week; we've got another snowstorm starting....6 to 10 inches predicted!