Fiasco

Okay, I'm giving up on the Hex Coat from Knitting Nature. I simply can't take it anymore. I haven't written much this week because I've been so frustrated with myself. I thought everything was going swimmingly. I had finished everything except the seaming and the hexagon trim. I had been in such a hurry that I didn't worry too much that the coat seemed a little long. Not just that, the armholes seemed long as well. I finally decided to try it on my mother (this was supposed to be her birthday present). Oops. What went wrong?

I had knitted a swatch. I thought I carefully measured the gauge. I obviously did not. My stitch gauge was right on, but my row gauge was off, way off.

When I thought about it, I realized that I usually don't depend on my row gauge that much because most patterns are written in a way that makes row gauge almost superfluous. You knit until you reach a certain length and then do armhole shaping, knit until you reach another length, do shoulder and neck shaping, and then bind off. If your row gauge is slightly off, you still get a fitting garment.

The hex coat pattern doesn't work like that. Once you start the armhole shaping you knit until you have completed so many rows, then bind off. Now, if I had measured better and realized that I was off, I could have adjusted things, but I didn't figure it out until I had gotten too far. I looked at the knitting I had done, and thought about how unpleasant it had been (all that repetitive, mind and finger numbing moss stitch). I just couldn't face knitting the top half over again. So I have given up.

I am now knitting Breezy Cables from Interweave Knits, Spring 2006 for my mom.


I didn't like this sweater when I first saw it in the magazine, but when I started desperately swatching for my mother's sweater, I really loved the way the pattern looked in my chosen yarn (Knitaly, by Colorado Yarns). Mom's birthday present is no longer slightly belated, but I would rather knit an entirely different garment than knit the Hex Coat again. I'm about 2/3's done with the back and I am so happy knitting something that I enjoy. Cables make me happy. Even if it takes longer, it's so much more fun.