Wasted Days and Wasted Nights*

What’s wrong with this picture? This is my first (red) Green Gable, with my new (green) Green Gable sitting on top of it. WTF??? Do we see a slight sizing problem? I went to a conference in Phildelphia, and took along Green Gable. But unfortunately, I didn’t take along my first one for comparison. Then, because I didn’t end up with as much time to knit as I thought, I didn’t get to the underarms (where I could try it on for size) until I got to the airport for my return trip. Yes, I did in fact try it on in the airport restroom. It seemed like it might be too small, but it was hard to tell without a mirror, and I wasn’t about to parade around the women’s restroom in my bra with a little piece of knitting around my shoulders. So I continued knitting, and waited for my chance on the airplane. Trying on a piece of knitting in an airplane restroom is not exactly an easy task, by the way. And again, it did seem like it was a little too small. However, when I made the first one, I did a couple of extra rows right before separating the sleeves, and had decided not to do that with this one, so I expected it to be a little smaller.

So there I was, with a dilemma. A 4 1/2 hour flight with no other knitting to work on. And my book was in my checked luggage. Should I forge ahead, hoping that it was going to be okay, but knowing that I’d have to frog it if it wasn’t? Or should I stop and wait until I got home and could compare it to the first sweater? Hmmmm… well, with nothing else to do on the plane but watch a documentary on crossword puzzle tournaments (who picks out these movies????), I decided to go ahead and knit. I thought that maybe if the armhole really seemed a bit small, I could just pick up a couple of extra stitches or something. So I knitted away.

After the first movie, they actually put on a second – “The Devil Wears Prada”. At least I had something to watch while I was knitting. But alas, this morning I was faced with the sad truth. The top is indeed too small. After reviewing my notes, I realized that I had accidentally done an extra 4 rows in the lace section on the first sweater, in addition to the extra rows at the underarm. Grrrrr. I guess that’s what happens when the pattern doesn’t have any stitch counts listed other than for cast-on. Nothing to verify against. Evidently I got confused by the “repeat” instructions… how do you “repeat” something unless you’ve already done it before? So instead of doing the lace sections 5 times in total on the first sweater, I did them once, and then “repeated” them another 5 times – knitting 24 rows instead of 20. Shit. This time around, I knitted the pattern as it was intended, without realizing I’d done it differently before. Crapola! Now I have to decide whether to just rip it back to the armholes and do enough extra rows there to make up the difference, or rip back all the way to the lace and make the same “mistake” I did the first time. Arrgggh… all of that knitting time wasted.

* Wasted Days and Wasted Nights ~ in memoriam: Freddy Fender