So I’ve been out all day, wandering in the soggy rain — which left me soggy, pants wet to my knees, feet pruney from being in wet sandals all day, sandals that held water and also turned my feet black from the leather(?) uppers. Yes, I’m a real charmer right now.
Since I had a couple of hours to kill between appointments AND since I knew it was going to be so rainy, I didn’t want to take Peasy with me. A smaller, less complicated project was in order, so I took my 2nd Wowie Zowie sock. And I just solved a mystery associated with the first sock.
The yarn in the 2nd ball is dramatically lighter-weight, much less stiff, than the yarn in the 1st ball! The ball bands indicated that they were identical in every way, down to the dye lot. Exactly identical. Every way. But when I was knitting that first sock, the yarn just felt so thick and tough, and the sock was like heavy cardboard. It did soften up a lot after I blocked it, but it’s still substantially heavier than the 2nd ball of yarn.
Perhaps that’s why I ran out of yarn so quickly! Perhaps it was just mismarked, and it’s whatever weight is heavier than 4-ply fingering. I don’t know – but I do know that the yarns are not the same.
I feel redeemed, somehow! I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, before. The 2nd sock has a very different hand, much softer, more pliable. The colors are so strong, any differences won’t be very visible because they’re drowned out by ALL! THAT! COLOR!
Off to knit for a couple of hours, happy me!
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why can’t i do this math?!
I just feel the need to say this – this subject must be threatening to my identity or something – but I’m very good at statistics. I can do a discriminant function analysis, structural equation modeling, whatever. But knitting math just makes my head hurt. Since I’ve written about this before, and you left such generous comments, I do know that I’m not alone; for some of us, the whole enterprise is just counterintuitive. I knit a swatch and have too many stitches per inch….do I use a smaller needle or a larger one? Even though I have already been through this, I still don’t know.
So after redoing my Peasy swatch in the wrong direction, I redid it last night in the right direction. The pattern gauge is 22 st and 30 rows = 4 inches. Going up a needle size, I get 21.5 st and 30 rows = 4 inches. Pretty dang good!
My problem is that I can’t figure out what that 1/2 a stitch difference is going to mean. In the gracious spirit of Amy Herzog’s Fit to Flatter series, last night I decided to just suck it up and take my real measurements, disregarding what the actual numbers were and just looking carefully at the relationships between them. Then I compared them to the Peasy pattern to see what size I really need to knit. Well, I’m exactly on the large. Exactly.
So does this 1/2 stitch difference mean the sweater will be ever-so-slightly larger or ever-so-slightly smaller? If it’s larger, that’s wonderful! I sit here and try to puzzle my through it and just get a headache.
note to self: you can do structural equation modeling! you are not stupid!
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