Mister Gauge

Dear Reader, today's post is about that perennial favorite topic: knitting gauge. Gauge matters, we are told again and again (and again). Your mileage may vary. Swatch generously, measure twice, and all will be well. Unless you are me.

There's an old, odd, television series that lasted only a few seasons called The Tick, starring Patrick Warburton as the title character, a superhero who dresses in a blue formfitting tick costume. The Big Blue Bug of Justice is muscular, brave, righteous and very, very dumb. One of my favorite lines from the show comes when Tick has done something especially foolish, and expresses his dim awareness that he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He says to his sidekick Arthur, "You're on a first-name basis with Lucidity. I have to call him Mister Lucidity, which is no good in a pinch."

I have to call him Mister Gauge.

Lesson One: Needle Size Matters



This Doctor Who scarf is 3.8 meters (12.5 feet, 1128 rows, 56,400 garter stitches) of woolly mohairyness. You can't tell from the artfully arranged photo above, but one section of it is 2 or 3 cm (about an inch) narrower than the rest. Now why would this happen? The thinner section was knitted during a visit to Canada. Right now some of you are puzzled, while others are rolling their eyes. Yes, I borrowed some needles from my hostess, and no, I did not realize that CA/UK pin sizes are different than US ones. A UK size 8 is a US 6, and a US 8 is a UK 6, the point being that they are not the same size.

Lesson Two: Needle Size Really Matters



These socks were designed by Wendy of Wendy Knits, who is the world's most reliable and accurate pattern writer. So why did these socks turn out much too big for me? Shut up, I did TOO swatch! I knit a large swatch in the round and measured it carefully, and adjusted the pattern accurately in accordance with my measured gauge. My math was perfect. The only difference between the swatch and the sock was that I knitted the swatch with circs and the sock with DPNs, but I checked the size of the pins with a needle gauge and they were both US 2s.

Did you know there is more than one size called US #2? Yes indeed, there is. Ditto US 1 and 6. However, many knitting needle gauges have only one hole for each US size. I had knit my swatch with 2.75 mm US2, but knit the sock with 3.00 mm.

I've bought an accurate needle gauge with (I think...) all the sizes. But I wonder what other surprises the cruel mistress that is gauge has waiting for me.

Now with More Socks

This weekend included 8 hours on the train to & from Vancouver BC, and I needed a portable sock (squashable, droppable, interruptible, easily memorized). This one fits the bill perfectly: Nancy Bush's Oak Ribbed Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks. The yarn is Regia Stretch, color 111.

Embossed Leaves Cast-On (and On)

The Embossed Leaves socks pattern (Ravelry link) by Mona Schmidt is published both in Interweave Knits Winter 2005 issue, and in the book Favorite Socks.

In both sources, the pattern calls for a 1x1 rib cast on. I cast on as prescribed, but the edge did not look, to my eye, like the photo in the pattern. It was not very stretchy and had a pointy look, instead of the softly rounded edge in the photo. Research on the Ravelry boards led me to a tutorial on Mona's blog (see links in her sidebar) demonstrating the cast on she intended the socks to have: the tubular cast on from Montse Stanley's Knitters Handbook (p. 78).

I also found an excellent video of this technique, with additional explanation, on Ysolda's site. The photo above is my 2nd start on the sock, with tubular cast on, looking at least closer to what it should be. So this project has begun in my usual fashion: read a bit, knit a bit, read a bit, frog a bit, and repeat.