Lessons For Knitting . . . and Life

I've been working on a Fair Isle sweater since February. It has been challenging and very educational. Unfortunately, I made a fatal error this week. To wash it before blocking, I decided to put it in our front-load washer on gentle cycle and cold water. It felted in the washer. I knew better than to do this. I should have washed it by hand, but, I tried to take a short-cut. Patrick helped me to stretch it as much as I dared when I blocked it. Nonetheless, it has shrunk from a size XL to a size S.

This isn't the only lesson that I've learned in the midst of doing this project. As upset as I am about felting the sweater after so much work, I can look back on the last six months and see lots of opportunities for me to become more educated about knitting – and life.

• Make a gauge swatch (which I almost always do) in the round if that's the pattern (which I rarely do) and block it (which I rarely do). I had gauge problems with both sleeves and even the body of the sweater because I wasn't serious about my swatching.

  • Life Lesson: Prepare as much as possible before starting a new project.

• Check gauge while knitting. I didn't realize how much my gauge changed when I was actually working on the sweater compared to the swatch. (Of course, doing my gauge swatch in the round would have also helped.)

  • Life Lesson: Monitor your progress as you continue your project.

• Modify the pattern to knit the sleeves in one big tube with steeks in between. I followed the pattern as it was written, which worked pretty well, but I saw that someone on Ravelry did the sleeves together with steeks separating them. This technique looks like it will be faster and mean less fiddling with the ends of the yarn.

  • Life Lesson: Learn from other people.

• Use a regular cast-on instead of a provisional cast-on at the beginning. I used a provisional cast-on for the body because I read on another blog that this allows flexibility in adding length after the rest of the sweater is done. In this case, though, the chances that I would want to increase the size of my ribbing was very small and the annoyance of dealing with the provisional cast-on at the end was significant.

• Life Lesson: Apply new techniques with discretion – just because something is new and different doesn't mean that it's better.

• Use the sewing machine to secure the steek before cutting.  The pattern called for making a crocheted line of duplicate stitches on each end of the steek to secure it before cutting.  This worked, but it took a long time, was rather fiddly, and was hard to ensure that I had gotten each row included. I had read about how to use the sewing machine to do this procedure, but I chose to use the crochet method just because I didn’t want to deal with taking out the sewing machine and because I’m not as comfortable sewing on the machine.

• Life Lesson: Take the time to learn to use the machines and techniques that will give the best result.

• Hand wash wool items in cold water. Do NOT use the washing machine, even with cold water.

  • Life Lesson: Do not take shortcuts; they rarely get you where you are going any sooner and often send you to the wrong place completely.

I hope that the sweater will fit my mom or someone else suitably small. I can always hang it up in the shop with the note: “Abandon all hope, ye who take shortcuts!”

I have enough yarn left that I can probably knit another sweater of this same pattern with only having to replenish one or two colors.  I think I’ll try again, starting with a proper gauge swatch.  This time I’ll learn from my mistakes and, hopefully, end up with a really amazing sweater.

So, what lessons have you learned from knitting or crocheting? Any other stories to share?

 

Note: No pictures this time.  I was too depressed to take any pictures when I blocked it.

Next time: Ordering Yarn!