Delusional

Happily humming along on the crochet-along sweater. I measured the gauge and was happily getting gauge. Then Rachel came over with her sweater and it looked a lot smaller then my sweater. We were doing the same size. Then I held my sweater up to my hips and it looked too small for me. It wasn't until two days later that it occurred to me what was going wrong.

When we did our gauge swatches, we were doing the V-stitch as we learned it (Double crochet, chain-1, double crochet). Also, in my gauge swatch, the gauge I was getting was a half stitch too big. No problem, I thought, I'll just make a size smaller and it should all even out. (Stop laughing.) At the lunch we had, we realized the actual pattern's V-stitch was just double crochet, double crochet. We even realized our gauge would end up a bit smaller then our swatch. We plowed on like it wouldn't matter. (Seriously, I can hear you giggling.)

This is how far along I was after four days...


The worst part is, in case you missed it, I measured my gauge in the actual sweater and was getting proper gauge according to the pattern. Well, duh, my swatch was bigger so I was making a size smaller. Do you get what I'm saying? I should be making my proper size.... (sigh).

I call Rachel at work and tell her the whole sad story. She says we should just frog and start over. I couldn't bare to think about it. I said, "Maybe I could just lose weight! That might be less painful then ripping all this out." She laughed. I know, truly delusional. I told her I'd need a couple of days then I'd frog.

That night, I tried it on. I had trouble getting it over my head and arms, even more trouble getting it over the girls and stretched it over the hips. I took it off, sighed and said,
"Ribbit, ribbit."

So here's my tip. Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with gauge. I've had to rip out two completely finished sweaters in the past. My tip is to start you're re-do while ripping the mistake at the same time.

New on the left while frogging the mistake on the right.

Instead of frogging, re-rolling each ball of yarn and re-starting. Just re-start and you have a handy carrying case of the old yarn!

Blissfully Unaware, Ruth!