Row, Row, Row . . .
Well, I don’t have a picture of it for you, because when I turned on my camera, it promptly said the battery was low and turned itself off, but I tried my Autumn Rose on before and the good news is that it fits just fine. This is quite a relief. The row gauge may be off, but at least the stitch gauge is more or less matching my swatch.
See? Here’s my swatch (on the left) sitting on top of my sweater. Stitch width is just about the same, but the height? Oh my, so different. What with it being Fair Isle, it’s so easy to tell that the horizontal bands don’t match.
Now, HOW this ended up so different when I made my swatch without purl stitches and am using the same yarn and needles and all that? No idea. I mean, really. No. Idea.
(Oh, and I got this picture because I went downstairs and got the camera out of my purse.)
And no, I haven’t finished revising my Excel chart. I laid my sweater out flat and it measures about 9.5″ long, about 40% of the total, 23″ length of the sweater. As in, a good two inches longer than it should be. Which means that, proportionately, I need to recalculate the armscrye shaping, the raglan shaping, all of that, to take the new realities of the situation.
In the chart on the right, do you see the blue line? That’s where I am on the chart, and I need to work all the neckline, sleeve, and raglan shaping proportionately between that blue line and the red line. And once that’s done, I need to do it all over again for the sleeves because, of course, they have to match.
Yes, I’m kind of stalling. Just a bit.
On the plus side, the whole, avoid-doing-the-hard-math thing gave me a chance to work on my Ribby’s sleeves. They are actually in the home stretch right now. 17″ long and about to start the shaping for the top. Woot. I really can’t wait until this sweater is done, it’s going to look fabulous.
And now that the weather is starting to feel like early autumn, that’s even better. Because, well, making sweaters is simply more exciting when you can actually conceive of wearing them, right?
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wow, it is really looking gorgeous!
Wow. That excel chart is amazing! I don’t envy you in having to do all that math. My thoughts are with you on that one. At least you’ll be done that much sooner, right? Gotta find a bright side.
Hmmm. Maybe you had a visit from the same ‘Bad Gauge Fairy’ that comes when I try to do a swatch? I don’t envy you the math… Looks lovely, though!
That much fiddling for fair isle would have me stalling too!
You have me very stumped on the row gauge changing so dramatically. I hope it isn’t catchy 
just remember what the yarn harlot says; “swatches LIE.”
i hate swatches. I have learned to knit 4 inches of whatever I am knitting and then check gauge. But, a little length on a fair isle is not too bad either… will it shrink “up” when you wash it? And, will this type of sweater “ride up” the back? I know you can add short rows to compensate in the back, but longer length helps too. Love the colors… remind me: was this a kit?
Well – it does look beautiful and I have utter and total faith in you. You’ll be able to adjust the pattern and it will be a smashing sweater. It’s going to look perfect with the autumn leaves. I can hardly wait to see the finished sweater. Good luck!
PS – I hate it when that happens to the camera. Ugh!
Just goes to prove the point that swatches LIE!
You are plugging right along. I know what you mean about the autumn weather. The nice chilliness is bringing on sweater fever!
Rose is going to be so gorgeous – well worth the fiddling!
It does look amazing – and all that math will (as you know) be worth it in the end!
Wow…I love the way it looks! I’ll be cheering you all the way!