St. Brigid
As I mentioned previously, there's a reason I do indeed carefully swatch, at least when I think it's going to matter. Here you may see an example, not a good one, of a "St. Brigid" sweater, made from Alice Starmore's excellent design, found in Aran Knitting:
Actually, it's TWO "St. Brigid" sweaters. The first was too big -- I started it when I was oh, quite a bit larger than I am now. I laboriously did all the math to get the thing to a decent size 2X, or whatever it was, and, luckily, only got halfway up the back before embarking on the Getting Healthy project which led to having to frog everything I'd done up to that point, and start all over in size medium, or whatever.
I swatched for that very carefully, though not, as it turned out, carefully enough; that is, I swatched carefully, but I didn't measure carefully. But since I HAD swatched, I refused to believe what was obvious from the beginning, which was that I was way off gauge, and the sweater was going to be Very Tiny. Indeed, I so deeply refused to believe this that I wouldn't remeasure my work, and got Almost Entirely Done with the damn thing before I admitted that it wouldn't do, and that indeed I was only going to be able to wear it if I became severely ill and wasted away, at which point it wasn't going to be much fun to wear.
So I frogged it completely. Sam still hasn't recovered -- that I would actually rip apart a work that had taken me months was more than he could take in. But I did it, anyway, and washed the yarn and tried to get it back to its near original shape, and that is why the lovely "Scottish Heather" -- color "Seabright" -- is lying in hanks in the photograph above. I think someday I'll knit it up into Starmore's "Little Rivers," when I think I can work with that wonderful yarn again. (Sidenote here -- I see, by the bands on the untouched skeins, that I bought the Heather for $5.60 a skein. Wailing and gnashing of teeth.)
But I didn't give up on the "St. Brigid" design itself; I worked it again in "Hebridean 3-ply," in the color "Sundew":
In this one I'm on gauge.
Last winter I was wearing it in Manhattan and I stopped in a coffee shop for an expresso-to-go, where the woman behind the counter got a bit excited: "Where the hell did you get that sweater! You can't BUY a sweater like that! You MADE that!" Very satisfying, having jealous strangers yell at you about your knitting. I love New York. Strangers accost me about my sweaters in Pittsburgh, sure, but they don't actually yell. It's not the same.
Actually, it's TWO "St. Brigid" sweaters. The first was too big -- I started it when I was oh, quite a bit larger than I am now. I laboriously did all the math to get the thing to a decent size 2X, or whatever it was, and, luckily, only got halfway up the back before embarking on the Getting Healthy project which led to having to frog everything I'd done up to that point, and start all over in size medium, or whatever.
I swatched for that very carefully, though not, as it turned out, carefully enough; that is, I swatched carefully, but I didn't measure carefully. But since I HAD swatched, I refused to believe what was obvious from the beginning, which was that I was way off gauge, and the sweater was going to be Very Tiny. Indeed, I so deeply refused to believe this that I wouldn't remeasure my work, and got Almost Entirely Done with the damn thing before I admitted that it wouldn't do, and that indeed I was only going to be able to wear it if I became severely ill and wasted away, at which point it wasn't going to be much fun to wear.
So I frogged it completely. Sam still hasn't recovered -- that I would actually rip apart a work that had taken me months was more than he could take in. But I did it, anyway, and washed the yarn and tried to get it back to its near original shape, and that is why the lovely "Scottish Heather" -- color "Seabright" -- is lying in hanks in the photograph above. I think someday I'll knit it up into Starmore's "Little Rivers," when I think I can work with that wonderful yarn again. (Sidenote here -- I see, by the bands on the untouched skeins, that I bought the Heather for $5.60 a skein. Wailing and gnashing of teeth.)
But I didn't give up on the "St. Brigid" design itself; I worked it again in "Hebridean 3-ply," in the color "Sundew":
In this one I'm on gauge.
Last winter I was wearing it in Manhattan and I stopped in a coffee shop for an expresso-to-go, where the woman behind the counter got a bit excited: "Where the hell did you get that sweater! You can't BUY a sweater like that! You MADE that!" Very satisfying, having jealous strangers yell at you about your knitting. I love New York. Strangers accost me about my sweaters in Pittsburgh, sure, but they don't actually yell. It's not the same.
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