knitting after a PhD
I'll tell you one thing a PhD will not help you with: gauge.
I volunteered to make tipless gloves for my sister-in-law's sister. My sil found a pattern that she liked (on the left), from Holiday Knitting, which I do not own. However, I *do* own Handknit Holidays and there's a glove pattern in that. You know what's coming next, do you? I felt that the 2 patterns were so similar that there was no need for me to purchase a new book. Hell, I even told my sil to choose a different cable! The pattern in Handknit Holidays calls for Blue Sky Alpaca's Alpaca & Silk which knits up at 6spi. My sil bought Baby Cashmerino, which knits up at the same exact gauge. What a stroke of luck! I cast on immediately. In fact, I felt so confident that I tried a new (for me) way to do the tubular CO (thank you Montse Stanley).
Let's do a re-cap of the mistakes so far, shall we?
1. no gauge swatching
2. no pattern
3. daring new cast-on technique
Here's a few more mistakes, thrown in for good measure:
4. Did not read the Handknit Holidays pattern through.
You are instructed to CO 96 st, work a few rows in a twisted cable pattern, then you decrease to 64 st. Of course, I cast on 96 st and knit merrily on. Riiiiip!
5. CO the correct number of st, but using yet another CO technique. Looked terrible. Rip.
6. CO using good old reliable tubular CO technique (the one in Nancie Wiseman's book). Ahh. Much better. Felt smug. Showed off knitting to family members.
7. Knit all the way up to the thumb while thinking "this is really wide".
8. Continued knitting up to the pinky, while still thinking "damn, this is really wide". Decided to measure gauge. The gauge in the pattern is 8.5 spi but I have 7 spi. How could this be?! RIP.
9. Realized I forgot to knit the cable.
*sigh*
