all is not well in the land of Courtney

i, of all people, should know better than to begin a new project when Mercury is in retrograde. but, once again, i have fooled myself into thinking that my knowledge of such things places me above the law. case in point, Courtney. as soon as i saw that this pattern called for a size 11 needle, i knew there would be trouble. you can almost never get gauge at this needle size. there's a huge gap between a size 10.5 and a size 11 and the gauge always seems to fall somewhere between the two. while i appeared to get the correct gauge on a size 11, i suspected that it would be problematic, yet in my quest for a fast and easy project i ignored my intuition and cast on anyway. i was a few inches away from the armholes when i realized that this sweater is humungous! there's no way in hell i could wear this. it would look like a tent on me. i''ll have to rip back at least to the ribbing. from there my options are a) crawl into my closet and find the UFO that's on my 10.75 needle and use that or b) stick with the size 11 and knit the size small instead of the size medium and count on it coming out a little larger. i absolutely hate it when designers leave a large gap between sizes. the finished size for the size small is 35" and for the size medium it's 39". that's ridiculous. when i'm knitting a pattern that i've purchased, i don't want to have to adjust the numbers to make it fit. for me, that defeats the purpose of following a pattern. even though i knit for a living, i firmly believe that my knitting shouldn't always have to be work. yes, i am ranting. and while i am mad at the pattern, i'm more angry at mysef for making a poor choice. anyway, at these sizes the small would fit, though not the way it is intended and the medium would be too big. i was aiming to knit tighter and to make it a tad smaller, but instead it came out much larger. it seems to be about 40.5" around. 37" would be about perfect for me. what's a knitter to do? i think i'll rip it back today and give myself a day or two to think about this. i am really disappointed. it feels like it's been ages since i've a had a fun, trouble-free project on my needles.

** (1 hour later) so long, Courtney, i decided to rip the whole thing out. what a waste. i'll start it again next month. i'm going to be sick now.

and because i haven't posted a photo of him in ages and because just the sight of him makes me happy, here's a recent pic of Ashby. he looks rather serious here. i think, at the time, i wasn't feeling well and he was expressing his concern. he usually looks a bit more feisty.

Comments

[Rhonda]

I hate that you had to rip out Courtney. You are using such a lovely looking yarn too.

Who would have thought a great knitter like you would have to do that? Next time I have to rip out my knitting I'll remember that is okay not to be perfect!

[shobhana]

hah! i rip things out ALL the time! =)

[Suzanne]

Cheer up! I seem to be having a bad knitting week myself. Everything I start I hate so I rip it out and start something else and hate that and on and on..... Hey, your dog is adorable! And I'm looking forward to Yarnplay at Home coming out!!

[sheila]

Sorry to hear about your project, the yarn looks lovely... what yarn are you using. Your Ashby is so adorable and looking all scholarly.

[sandra]

oh hi Ashby!! sweet!