I tried it on.
It’s too big.
But not “OH SHIT TOO BIG!” like it was before, more like “this could maybe use a bit more negative ease, hmm”. And it’s just the right size for the boobies. I’m about a 35″ bust and it measures about 32.5″ around, and my evil torture bra will probably smoosh down the boobs a little, so, nice and snug and not too stretchy. But it’s bunching up weird elsewhere, there’s this strange wrinkle in the back that is making me wonder whether I have a grossly misshapen body, because – it’s a tube! A stretchy tube! How the hell does it find somewhere to wrinkle strangely?
And then I thought, maybe when it’s actually finished, the elastic at the top will pull it in nicely, and the ribbon around the middle will pull it in nicely, and all will be well.
And then I thought…
… I didn’t wash my swatch.
Of course I didn’t. Of course I was too lazy to wash it, and then unraveled it to reclaim the yarn, and now it’s going to bite me in the ass. How does Rowan Calmer behave after washing? I turned to the internets, which told me that its gauge changes after washing. But not in what direction. Oh, internets.
It changes. Does it shrink? Does it grow? I don’t know. Do I have extra yarn to make another swatch and wash it? Of course I don’t. If it does shrink, will the bottom part be too small for my giant hips? Yes, probably. (And hey, whoever found my blog by googling “giant hips”? Stop that. Stop that right now.)
Am I going to stab myself in the eye with my knitting needles? Yes, yes I am.
I caaaaan’t rip it back again. I just can’t. I want this top to be finished and I want my soul back. I’m tempted to finish it, chuck it in warm water for slight shrinkage, block the snot out of the lace so it’ll be large enough, and call it a day. Surely nothing can go wrong with this well-thought-out plan…
It looks so cute and innocent, doesn’t it? You would never guess that it EATS SOULS.
I don’t get it. It’s a lovely pattern, and it’s an easy pattern, just some simple lace and then some simple eyelets and then some simple stockinette. Only I could find a way to fuck it up.
Here’s what I did – I picked a different yarn. With a different gauge. And then did the math to figure out how to alter the pattern. And I did the math correctly, even. (Yeah, I know you were thinking it.) It seems that doing all that is the equivalent of putting my soul on a nice serving platter with a selection of condiments.
I started knitting. It was too big. I mean TOO BIG. I wish I had taken a picture. If I stretched it out a little it looked like I had a hula hoop around my waist. So I frogged, and took out a whoooole lot of stitches, pattern and gauge be damned, and started over, and created a tiny thing that looked like it would fit an eight-year-old, and then tried it on, and IT FIT.
I am not the size of an eight-year-old, so I can only assume that this Lelah does not obey the laws of nature. Given the gauge debacle, it definitely doesn’t obey the laws of mathematics.
Anyway, I happily knitted on, and got to the stockinette part, and thought, nuh-uh, no way is this fitting over my boobs without stretching and going see-through. We don’t want any wardrobe malfunctions, so I increased some stitches. Knit knit knit, and tried it on, and it was (say it with me now)…
TOO BIG. Again.
Of course I didn’t have a lifeline, so I had to do the thing where you try to put the stitches on your needle before ripping, and I messed it all up, and picked up some stitches from the wrong row, and then had to fix that big mess, and I will not elaborate further because I’ve already said fuck once in this post and I don’t need to say it twenty-seven more times.
Re-knit without the increases, and it is just about time to try it on again but I’m kind of afraid to. WHAT NOW? HUH? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO ME NOW, YOU ACCURSED TUBE TOP OF SATAN?
I still think the pattern is just darling. And the finished object probably will be too, if it ever actually gets finished.