Tuesday, July 20, 2010

#10 Lace Dress Continues to Confound

I have been knitting and frogging and knitting and frogging #10 Lace Dress
by Sandi Prosser from Knit Simple Magazine, Spring/Summer 2010. What is the problem, you might ask? Gauge, that old gotcha. You wouldn't think it would be that big of a deal on an A-line dress, but boy has it caused some serious frayed yarn. You see, my substitute yarn, Universal Yarns Summer Linen that I purchased from Herrschner's, is giving me some funky gauge problems. In stockinette, I get the 21st/4" gauge on #7s. But on Chart #1's horseshoe lace, I ended up with a tent. I figured out that the tent-edness (to coin a word) had two contributing factors: gauge and the size I chose. I had to use #4's to get the 22st/4" gauge listed for the lace pattern, but the bottom width for my usual size was still too much. So, I changed to the smallest size on #4 needles, and I was happy with the bottom hem width. No problem, I'll just figure out how to change needles or add increases after I get to the waist, which is evidently not going to be anytime soon. However, after I finished Chart #1 (2-1/2 repeats) and Chart #2 (5-3/4 repeats), I did a sanity check and held it up to make sure it was going to fit. It did not. Chart #2's gauge ended up being 24sts/4". So, I ripped back to the start of Chart #2, and changed to #5's, which is working nicely. At this rate, I shall have to change to #6's for Chart #3, and #7's for Chart #4, which would leave me just peachy for the stockinette bodice at 21st/4" on #7s. I knew this dress would take awhile, but it's killing my summer knitting and I have yarn on the way for another summer top.

Ah, the stress of incoming yarn!

1 comment:

Linda said...

Aah, I hate it when that happens. Sounds like you're getting it worked through though.