SAL Wednesday : Intervention

Tarot of the Magical Forest

I have been absent because I have been feeling very low and dejected, owing to a combination of circumstances - not least of which was completing Mini Diva's Wilde cardigan and being quite unhappy with the result. I might be brave (or resigned) enough to post about it on Friday.

My MIL is our Secret Santa recipient this year, and I determined to make her a gorgeous cardigan. After overcoming such obstacles as picking the color (I took advice from two of my SILs, so I have others to blame if it is wrong) and measurements (again, a devious SIL achieved this - you may admire and envy my foresight, see previous brackets), spending hours searching for exactly the right yarn in terms of weight, color etc to find it and then discover JUST before I clicked the 'buy' button - thank the gods - that it was handwash only .... as I say, all this was overcome, and I selected 9 balls of Sirdar Wool Rich Aran in 'Powder Blue' at what I thought was a really reasonable cost of £43.

So, given the (reasonable yet expensive-for-me) cost of the yarn and for whom it is destined, I spared no effort, and did this:

No, it's OK, I'll wait while you pick your jaw up from the floor.

Yes, it's another swatch. The third in as many months, at least. 

Is it a sign that I am irrevocably doomed to a sensible and unexciting future of being an Engineer rather than an Artiste ? 

Might there be hope for me yet to go back to those freewheeling days of yore when I cared not a snap of my fingers for gauge, where I revelled in the thrill of living right on the Raggedy Edge, when we did not know if something would fit until it was actually Put On.

Oh yes - the swatch results: I got 19 st x 24 rows on 4.5mm needles when the pattern requires 18 st x 28 rows.

What do you mean, did I do another one on different size needles ? 

Are you CRAZY ? 

I'm too busy swigging gin and waiting for you to do an Intervention.





Pop over to Gracey's, to see what else is going on in the mad dash to Christmas .....

WIP Wednesday: An Old Dog

Spiral Tarot

I thought talking about an old dog learning new tricks might be a bit less threatening than talking about Armageddon or the End of the World being nigh, as in, right now this minute.

Because I made a swatch:

I made a swatch because I want to make Wilde for Mini Diva's Xmas present. Instead of the Malabrigo Rasta at a cost of nearly £100/approx.$158 and aftercare involving washing it by hand in filtered unicorn pee and drying it with the breath of fairies (but only orange ones) in a south-facing rose garden at dawn, I've substituted King Cole Big Value Chunky for about £25/approx.$39 which can be bunged in the machine and will survive the Zombie Apocalypse along with the cockroaches. Let's set this out as simply as possible:

Malabrigo Rasta recommended gauge:  10st x 18 rows in a 4'' square on 9 - 12mm needles

Pattern gauge:   6st x 9 rows on 15mm needles

King Cole Chunky gauge: 10st x 14 rows on 10mm needles

So from that heap of confusion, you can see the logical thing to do was to knit a swatch and actually do, like, you know, measuring-type things. So feeling very grown-up and sensible and responsible and more of those really unattractively boring qualities, my first swatch on 12mm needles came in at 7.5st x 11 rows. Which means that the item would come out way too small (by about 20% according to the help I got from Ravelry).

So I made the Earth positively rock on its axis by knitting ANOTHER SWATCH.

I know, you'll need more than a moment to recover. I'm not sure if I have even now. Do they even make smelling salts any more ?

This gave me 7st x 9 rows on 15mm needles; but you can see in the photo that the fabric is too holey and loose - it'll sag and let the cold in.

So after all that, and with advised caution, I shall attempt using 12mm needles and make the Large size hoping to achieve a Small in the end. 

You may indeed wish me luck - I am surely going to need it all.