The Scottish Sweater

Yes, you heard me. The Scottish Sweater... a la "Shakespeare's Scottish Play." Named such not for any reason having to deal with Scottish wool or pattern, but because of what I believe to be a fairly strong jinx upon the making of said sweater. It seems that this sweater is not meant to be made. At least not by me.



This was supposed to be a nice sweater for Mom. Basic neck-down pattern from Knitting Pure and Simple & cotton yarn from Blue Heron (not the texture of what is pictured, but that is close to the color we chose). Blue Heron is gorgeous, but uber-expensive, so Mom got the yarn for Christmas and I was to knit up the sweater by her birthday in May. Not that hard a task, right? Not that hard when you aren't jinxed, I should say!


There were warning signs that I was not meant to make this sweater from the start. First, the yarn needed to be held double, so I went ahead and wound it into one mega skein... with jacked up tension, so one strand is about three yards longer than the other at the end. Not that big a deal, I had like 100 yards extra, so I ignored that.

Then, I had to frog the start of it a couple times because I am a moron who doesn't match gauge of yarn to gauge of pattern, I just do a conversion as I knit. I fudged it up, in other words, because I measured gauge at the start and got 5 st/in. Then I kept knitting and got 6 st/in. But I was undaunted because this was back in January or February and I had only made it down to under the armpits before I had to pull it all out. I restarted with new gauge of 6 st/in, but have been distracted recently with other projects and it has sat in the corner for a while.

So I pick it up at the beginning of this week, as Mom's birthday is about two weeks away and I want to make sure it's the proper length for her liking. We try it on, only to realize that it's super huge because 1) I was rounding up in size to fit her taste, and 2) she has lost weight since January! Darn her for getting in shape and being healthy! So now I get to rip out a LOT. :( I was almost done, but I refuse to make things for people that they won't like. I will gladly sweat-shop myself for you, but you need to wear it now and again. To that end, I try to make things fit really well, so the recipient isn't stuck with something that is misshapen.

After about 50minutes of ripping out, I was ready to start over. Mom and I agreed to go with the smaller size, and I was excited because I had about two weeks to do up this sweater. Whoo, speed knitting! So for the last two days I've knit my fingers stiff, and I am back at the underarm part where the sleeves are separated and you continue on with the body... and guess what? I measure gauge again to check how big it is and I'm not really knitting 6 st/in, but more like 5.5 st/in! dammit!! Now you may wonder what the big deal is, half a stitch per inch, but over 200 stitches it makes a huge difference. Let's do the math:

37" around x 6 st/in = 222 stitches

but if you have 222 stitches and your gauge is really 5.5 st/in, you suddenly have a 40" sweater! That makes a difference when someone wants to actually wear the sweater.

So, because I know myself, I'm going to put down the infernal Scottish Sweater before I throw it out into the road and light it on fire (the yarn is too pretty and expensive). I will take a deep breath and try to salvage what I can ... starting no earlier than after dinner tonight. I think we need some time apart before I tackle this again. HOPEFULLY, one of these tries I will get it right and Momma can have her sweater (She's already chosen two more that are back-ordered).


Pray for me, dear readers, and let me get this damn sweater finished!