It’s Furious Balancing

Alas, my Knitting Cautionary Tale…

While slogging along on my Tempting Sweater, I discovered that my 60 rows of 2 x 2 ribbing on my Second Sleeve were much shorter than my 60 rows of 2 x 2 ribbing on my First Sleeve. I counted the rows twice, re-counted the stitches, and was puzzled until The Husband pointed out to me that the shorter sleeve was also narrower than the longer sleeve. A puzzlement, until it dawned on me that there was a difference in size between my needles.

Now, this is going to sound like I’m an idiot — or completely blind — but let’s discuss the Nature of the Beast.

The Tempting Sweater is designed so that you knit the body of the sweater (in the round) from the bottom up until you reach the underarm seam (where you join the sleeves to the body). You knit the two sleeves separately and then, in one fell swoop of knitterly genius, attach them to the body and continue knitting the sweater yoke in one continuous piece (with the sleeves now attached) on the large circular needle that you used to knit the body. Basically, you make the three pieces into one big piece.

This requires two sets of double pointed needles, one for each sleeve, since Sleeve One is just sitting there on its double points until you finally get your butt in gear and finish Sleeve Two and attach everything to each other.

<heavy sigh>

The Body was done, and set aside in its 2-gallon Ziploc baggie. The First Sleeve was done and went to keep the Body company in the aforementioned baggie. The Second Sleeve and the First Sleeve did not meet up for comparison purposes until after the Second Sleeve was finished.

So, I wasn’t aware of the difference in gauge until I finished the Second Sleeve, took the First Sleeve out of the aforementioned baggie, and noticed that there was Something Very Wrong Indeed.

I looked at the needles. I took out my Handy Needle Sizing Thing that I inherited from my Grandmother and everything.

The 8-inch Susan Bates size 8 double points are slightly larger than the 8-inch Inox size 8 double points. Seriously. Both packages were clearly labeled as a U.S. size 8, but they were completely different sizes. The Inoxes are closer to a size 7, or a 7.5, but there’s no such thing as a size 7.5, so I digress.

This isn’t the first time this has happened with regard to the Inox needles. I had bought a size 10.5 circular 24″ needle that was, according to my Handy Needle Sizing Thing, really a size 10.¹

<heavy sigh>

<frog frog frog frog frog>

It’s time to cast on that Damned, Bloody, Blasted Second Sleeve again. I swapped out the double points holding the First Sleeve with the Offending Mis-Sized German Inoxes – now relegated to duty as Mere Stitch Holders. Ha! — and am ready to start anew.

Well, start anew after I finish my morning coffee, that is.

* * * * *

1. I can’t recall what project that was for, but it must of been one where I either knit all the pieces on the same needle, or a project where gauge wasn’t an issue, like a scarf. [↩]

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 7:41 am and is filed under Knitting, LOLCats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.