Sometimes sizing mojo deserts me

Updated to add: This post made my lovely commenter think she had offended me. :( She totally did not, I was really just using what she said as an excuse to poke fun at myself and how my projects don't always work out as planned - something which I'm sure has happened to all of us! I'm very, very sorry to have made her feel like she needed to apologize to me - this is clearly a valuable lesson for me to learn about blogging and responding to comments. I've edited things so that hopefully I don't sound offended; and instead sound amused at my own knitting vagaries, which is what I meant to be.

On Ravelry, one of my readers was lovely enough to comment on the cardigan I tried to make for DD2, but actually ended up fitting DD1. She light-heartedly observed that this "hey, it doesn't fit" phenomenon seems to happen to me quite a bit. This reminded me that sometimes the size of things doesn't always turn out properly, you know?

For instance, my dad's Morgan hat for Christmas?

I tried to finish it recently and found that somehow, although I had been following the large instructions, it had come out way too small. No clue how that happened, since it was sized just right when I made it last year for DD2's teacher. As far as I can tell, the only way to fix it is to rip the whole thing back and start again, probably with larger needles this time. (And I'm almost certainly going to run out of yarn the second time around, but I should be able to get around that by knitting the part that folds under out of sight in a different colour of the same yarn.)

My Ljod cardigan turned out too big for me:

DH's 50th birthday present was far too massive:

This Sourpatch vest ended up fitting DD1 instead of DD2 as originally intended:

These mittens for BIL#2 are pretty damn huge:

This much-anticipated Fjalar sweater for myself doesn't really fit right in the proper places, plus I made the sleeves too short:

I meant for this to be a beret and failed miserably (I have since figured out beret physics, though, yay):

These socks have never fit me properly, I think I made the feet too short:

This tabard keeps falling off my shoulders:

These mittens never got past this point as it was clear they were going to be far too huge:

This sweater for DH totally fooled me - I started out making a medium, then the ribbing made me think it was going to be too small, so I ripped it back and did it in large instead, and guess what? Too big, of course!

And then, worst of all, my first adult sweater for DH, which ended up coming down to about his knees:

I can't be alone here, right? :) Do you have any projects with sizing woes?

The knitting

Sourpatch for DD2 DD1

This is now done, but it turned out weird. What happened was that, before starting, I looked at the needle, yarn and gauge requirements for the pattern, and, in my arrogance, decided that they wouldn't do.

The pattern calls for 3.5mm needles and sport weight yarn, and says quite clearly that we are supposed to be getting 22 sts over 4 inches in stocking stitch with all of that. But of course, 22 stitches over 4 inches with sport weight yarn in stocking stitch is what you're supposed to get when you use 4mm needles, not 3.5mm. And I have always gotten 22 stitches over 4 inches with sport weight yarn on 4mm needles in stocking stitch, so I used 4mms instead of the called-for 3.5mms and thought myself quite the clever knitter for solving gauge problems before even having them.

Some time later, quite a ways into the project, I started thinking, gee, this looks kinda big. Some time after that, I decided to actually measure things, and discovered that I was inexplicably getting 19 sts to 4 inches.

WTH?

Not wanting to rip out my work (or admit that my gauge was suddenly different), I kept going. And at the end, I had myself a really lovely little sweater for my four-year-old...



...that didn't actually fit my four-year-old.

But it fits my almost-eight-year-old just fine, with growing room, so hey surprise! DD1 has a new sweater.

Fortunately, DD2 was very understanding when I explained to her that (in a nutshell, but not using these exact words of course) Mummy had screwed up. :) I'm sure it helped that I promised her...

Sourpatch, take two, for DD2

I hit my LYS with DD2 on the weekend and bought way more than I had expected to because there were some good sales. But among the things I actually meant to buy were the yarn and needles for this project. And I love it:



The only problem is that it turns out I didn't buy enough dark purple yarn (my own fault, I was perfectly aware that the yardage of the 50g balls I was buying was not as big as the yardage in the 50g balls that the pattern recommends, but I figured I'd take the chance). However, I'm not too worried since I'm going back to the shop tomorrow for Charity Knit Night.

Celtic Pennies for DH

DH is turning the big 5-0 next month, and I wanted his gift to be a bit more spectacular than the usual pair of plain "vanilla" stocking stitch socks. So I'm making him a pair of fancy-schmancy stranded socks with a Celtic motif (which he will love) in his two favourite colours. I think he is going to seriously plotz when he sees them. Here is how it looked as of early this morning:



And I'm almost finished the leg chart now.

The pattern is "Celtic Pennies" by Heatherley Walker. As you can see, the design is absolutely fantastic, but unfortunately I'm finding the pattern instructions to be lacking some basics. I can adjust no problem, but other knitters might have a harder time not knowing how much yarn of each colour is needed or what gauge they're supposed to be getting. A chart legend and labels distinguishing which chart is which would also help a lot of people, I'm sure.

But once you get all past that, I'm finding it really is a pleasure to make.

What was I thinking?

Star Trek costume for baby #3

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO SEW UP BLACK KNITTING?!?

Coach cardi for baby Johnston

Well, I got some people telling me that the texture pattern looked like what it was supposed to look like, and some people who just couldn't see it. So naturally, why not give myself extra work...I started all over again with a slightly modified chart.


(I tried to fiddle with the colour to get it to picture accurately here, but I don't think I did a very good job - it's a basic primary red.)

Ruby for DD1

Starting a Christmas gift. In May. Sure, why not?

(No picture, sorry - DD1 is hanging around right now and I don't want to spoil the surprise by risking her seeing any visuals.)

Sourpatch for DD2

Sure, why not start something totally new and frivolous.



It is cute, though, you have to admit.

In good news, I did manage to finish and send off the "secret sample thing" submission. Also, I've almost managed to psyche my way up to doing the test knitting that's needed for me to finish off the writeup for a new pattern.

No telling what Startitis will make me do next instead, though!