It seems that gauge issues continue to plague my knitting life and once again I have spent the late hours of the evening (or wee hours of the morning depending on how you look at it) ripping.
Normally, a Sunday night ripping of a project begun on the previous Thursday would rank fairly low on the trauma scale.
But the Gedifra vest is knit on very large needles (although obviously in my case too large) and moves quickly. I had finished the back and was half done with the the first front piece when I decided to begin again, and that is what maddens me the most.
I don't mind ripping and starting over. Well there is always a bit of frustration over the process, but usually the rewards far outweigh the pain of starting over. But this time I was particularly annoyed because I had just spent most of the evening knitting, and I had been harboring doubts all that time that the knitting just looked too big. Damn. One should probably always listen to those niggling little voices in the back of the head. They are usually right. Especially of interest was that there were two voices: the one saying "it's too big" and the one saying "you have used far more than half the yarn, something is wrong".
Hence the idea of mindfulness. If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed that things seemed off and I would have heeded that small voice. But instead I was determined to retreat into my knitting like an ostrich sticking her head in the sand, just wanting to knit and relax and regardless of the consequences -- pure mindless knitting.
There is always a price to be paid.
I actually did a gauge swatch. I think I have mentioned before that my gauge swatches are often much tighter than my actual knitting. There is always much to learn from history. Blindly forging forward on pure emotion, instinct and adrenaline often yield lessons along the lines of "what not to do".
I had mentioned with Granite that I had gauge issues to begin with so one might think I would be wary with this project. But no. I seem to need to remind myself that knitting is more than just solace in a turbulent world. Although this project was chosen partly for its transformative, mindless knitting possibilities, the underlying structure must still be maintained.
And so we begin again: with swatches.
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