…apologies to Kat for not waiting until tomorrow to share an unraveling story, but it’s the only one I have for today! Good news first, there hasn’t actually been any literal unraveling (and I have a solid plan to move forward which will hopefully ensure a good result…without any ripping). But there has been a good bit of mental unraveling and even some math!

This is about A Twist to it, the test knit I’m doing for Melanie Berg. One of the reasons I fell for the pattern is that I had the yarn – almost exactly what she used in the quantity she called for – from a friend. The pattern is basically a big rectangle, knit from one short edge to the other. There is a very cool texture pattern that repeats 14 times per row and it’s a 16 row repeat. The pattern has you do the 16 row repeat 23 times; for the last 14 repeats, the texture pattern repeats fewer and fewer times, so it almost disappears by the end. Long story short, it’s important to the overall look of the piece to be able to finish all 14 of those final repeats.

I finished the first of my five skeins of one of the yarns yesterday afternoon – about 1/4 through the fifth (of those 23) repeat. Four repeats and four rows to be exact. uh oh. Four more skeins would mean 17 more repeats … two less than I need to finish. uh oh. what to do?! I considered buying more yarn – one more skein should do it. But the yarn is several years old and I can’t imagine the dye lots would match. I’m holding it with another yarn, so it might not be that noticeable. but still.

In the end, I decided to take the whole piece off the needles to block it. Maybe my gauge is just really off and there might be some way to make it all work.

Turns out my row gauge is big – about a half row per inch bigger. I know gauge matters. I did knit a swatch (and blocked it before I measured) – but sometimes swatches lie and the actual knitting simply behaves differently.

I did some more calculations and think I can get those 14 final repeats done if I eliminate one or two before that section begins. I asked Melanie about that and she said “sure” (boy I love test knitting for her!).

So I’ve wound and weighed the rest of the yarn; I’m going to have to measure carefully over the next few repeats. I’ll have to make the decision about how many repeats to eliminate before I finish the 2nd skein and to have the finished piece be the right size, I need to get as many repeats in as possible. (that sounds like another math problem).

Thank you Bonny for recommending Endeavor! (and subtitles)

Good thing I’ve got Inspector Morse to inspire some hard thinking!

#swatcheslie #knitterproblems

Happy Tuesday!