Gauge is a Fickle Beast

Kathleen-
This entry brought to you by Gauge is a Fickle Beast. Now showing wherever I'm knitting, for the foreseeable future.

So in my search for the perfect shrug pattern, I looked at lots of patterns and lots of yarn. I chose the lovely Royal Bamboo for its silkiness and fair price. After a false start involving the bolero from Vintage Knits, I decided on the One Skein Wonder pattern that has made its way around the blogs. Let me say up front that I love this pattern, and the problem is not with the pattern.

I made a gauge swatch. My gauge was terribly compressed. I did math. Lots of math. I triple checked. My swatch and the math told me that I could knit the largest size, and it should fit me. So I cast on. After knitting a few inches, I measured again. Right on track. So I kept knitting.

Which brings me to last night. I sat down to watch TV in the evening (two episodes of West Wing on DVD), and knit happily along. I knew I was approaching the end of the knitting of the main part of the piece, and then would need to knit the border. After two episodes, I counted stitches. I was done with the main knitting! Then I draped it around myself. Not happening. Several inches too small.

I measured, and lo and behold, the gauge was off. Way off. After a small fit of frustration, I decided to set it aside for the evening (measuring and knitting to resume tonight at Knit Night).

Then I started watching the end of the Minnesota Legislative Session. I know, I know. What an exciting life I have. Watching the legislature isn't generally too exciting, but with a midnight deadline and chaos threatening, it was actually pretty entertaining. As the evening wound down, I found myself ripping out and re-casting on for my sockapalooza socks for the second time. Apparently I really can't be trusted to count.

Tonight my Knit Night agenda involves reconsidering the pattern for my sockapalooza socks and deciding how to proceed on my one skein wonder. Wish me luck in my continuing battle with the fickle beast of gauge.....

PS: Hi Kathleen's brother.....