I've been very lucky up to this point when it comes to gauge. That is, without doing swatches, I've just gotten by and just gotten lucky with fit. But now I think I've encountered a piece where I have to let go of my gauge denial.
I began knitting this cycling aran for myself shortly before Christmas. I have to say that the cables turned out beautifully, and looking at it over the Internet with no reference of scale, one could easily assume the panel is knit to the correct dimensions. Unfortunately, it's not.
I've used the right yarn, but contrary to Elizabeth Zimmermann's advice, I trusted the gauge on the yarn package and not trusted my own gauge. I thought I'd squeak by, but I think I'm going to just have to accept that I'm in the wrong gauge.
It really comes down to three options.
One, keep knitting and stay in denial. Two, knit the opposite panel to gauge and see how big the difference is. If the difference is significant, I can frog this panel and knit it again. Three, stay only partially in denial and block this piece (potentially stretching the life out of it) to see if it wasn't a matter of gauge to begin with.
It's a dilemma that I'm ready to confront. I just have to decide on which option works for me. I know I don't want to go with option one. I'm done with snoozing on this project. I've really got to decide on option two or three. I'm going to think on it this weekend and commit to a decision by Sunday.
2 comments:
One of the problems with blocking cabled knits to adjust their size is that you often lose some of the three-dimensional qualities of the cables. Also, there's only so much extra width and length you can achieve by blocking alone, How much of the total have you knit so far, and how far off is the gauge?
If this was a fairly easy-breezy cable and I hadn't knit too much, I would be inclined to frog it and start again after swatching. Otherwise I'd probably forge ahead and try to think of an 8 to 12 year old who might appreciate it.
Oh, I just read everyone's comments on Ravelry (silly me, I should have looked there first)--swatching before you make your decision is definitely the best idea. I've run across a few yarns that totally transformed during the block and wash process, and this may be one of them.
Good luck!
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