Strike One.

Last night I was reading my email and there were people saying that the corset runs small so “size up”, and people saying that my theory is good, and people saying that the corset was big, so “size down”….this variety of opinions doesn’t shake me up at all. I figure that different experiences with a pattern are normal, since we all knit differently and goodness knows that it doesn’t matter to me what or how people knit, so when two different knitters have two conflicting opinions on a pattern….it’s par for the course. I’ll probably have my own experience and have to live with that too. I kept knitting.

Then I got some emails from a couple of knitters saying that they were right on gauge, that the corset looked fabulous and then it hit water and it was game over. They begged me to wash a swatch before I ended up with an extremely elegant lace and cable elephant corset. (Really, no matter how pro-elephant you are, you don’t want that. Elephants don’t hand wash. No hands.)

This scared me. I knit me a little swatch. (Shown here with the tape measure it only took me 22 minutes to find and photographed here, rather badly and at 1am.)

Small

Looks exactly like I was right. The gauge on the pattern is 22 stitches to 10cm/4″ and these are 22 sitches on a smaller needle, with a smaller yarn I am totally getting a smaller piece of knitting. Good thing too, since I choose the larger size to compensate.

Then I gave the swatch the tiniest little bit of a swish in the kitchen sink, (no soap, no violence) and very gently laid it out on the counter to dry. I did not stretch it or manhandle it in any way.

Bigger

Danger Will Robinson, DANGER. The swatch, expanding faster than my stash in a far flung yarn shop with a sale on laceweight, now measures a staggering and catastrophic 19 stitches to 4 inches. Now there are people who would be better at the math than me (perhaps even enjoy it…though I suspect that Kristen is lying about how much darned fun mathematics is) and that means I’m getting 4.75 stitches to the inch, instead of 5.5 stitches to the inch and that means that the 38.5 inch chest that I thought was going to come out small is actually going to be…wait, ok. so 4.75 X 38.5 = No. Wait, that would give me the number of stitches to cast on…that’s not right. Ok, 38.5 divided by…no. that won’t do it either. Hold on. If 38.5 divided by 5.5 is equal to “X” and in the new equation “X” is 4.75 then the new size of the corset is going to be…. for the love of wool. Screw it. It’s BIGGER. It’s going to be BIGGER. Kerstin or someone else who doesn’t think that all the air on the planet starts to go away whenever X = SOMETHING can figure out by how much. Me? I know it’s going to be BIGGER, and that’s not good. I wanted it SMALLER.

In the interest of getting it smaller, I’ve frogged attempt #1 and cast on the smallest size, on a smaller needle and we’ll see what happens now.

Attempt2

All of this math and frogging would have me upset except I have a new best friend.

Bunny

This wee cabled bunny made it’s trip here from Lee Ann’s house. She’s made of roving I gave Lee Ann, and she’s charming beyond all belief. (Yes. She is wearing underwear. What else? The poor little dear is far from home. Why wouldn’t she be wearing only underwear?) I love her, and she’s sitting by my laptop being admired.

I’m co-opting part two of the bike trip (I know, it’s breaking your heart that you don’t see the Canadian Parliament through the eyes of a manic knitter and her assorted sock projects today) with breaking news. Tomorrow I’ll be signing copies of Bookbookbook 1 at 1:00 at the Gemini Fibres booth at the Knitters Fair in Kitchener Ontario (which is really just a chance to go yarn crawling with Amy). This by itself is exciting, but the news is that Gemini Fibers, with the help of The Canadian Manda Group has managed (through a string of complex cross-Ontario phone calls and with the efforts of a really awesome dude there named “Anthony”, who is a distribution and shipping genius) to procure 32 copies of Bookbookbook 2, hot off the presses and before anybody else has them, which (when I am done staring at them and feeling faint) I’ll sign too.

Last time, Americans had the book a long time before a Canadian (namely my mother, the only Canadian it probably really pissed off…) set their eyes on it. This is often the case with North American book distribution, but for a Canadian author, it’s a little heartbreaking. This time?

Well. To quote Ryan…. “neener neener”.

Who’s coming to gloat say hi?