Why do I resist things that I know are good for me — exercise, dieting and swatching for example. Leaving the diet & exercise for another diatribe, let’s talk about swatching.

It never fails … I start a project and rather than do a swatch I will knit up or down a size figuring ‘it will all work out’. I have left projects to linger for years knowing that the gauge is off and they won’t fit, when they do finally come into my line of sight again, I usually just throw them out, rather than deal with it. I have ripped countless projects back, time and time again. I have switched to knitting scarves — what the hell, they always fit! When the girls were little (they are now 16 and 13), it didn’t seem to matter, anything that was too big, they would grow into. But those days are gone and things have changed except my bad knitting habits.

I attended Stitches East two years ago. I took June Hiatt’s wonderful class on swatching and figuring out gauge. I have computer software to do the math for crying out loud! If you read back through my archives, you will see an entry where I actually did do a swatch. This was because my good knitting friend came over to knit and she shamed encouraged me to do a swatch.

So now I am working on mittens — a simple, straightforward project. I even have a silhouette of the recipient’s hand!

Saturday Night:

spend hour mulling over the silhouette and the pattern

don’t swatch, figure knitting down a size will do the trick

start mitten

get 3/4 of the way through and realize it is too big

rip

Sunday

still think about what to do

decide you must swatch

make swatch

calculate gauge

start mitten

get 1/2 way through and realize this is crappy yarn

rip

go to stash and find better yarn

Monday

start mitten with better yarn

make some headway

realize that you should have swatched with the new yarn!

rip

bang head on wall

Tuesday

don’t knit in disgust with yourself

read book instead

Wednesday

still reading

Thursday

finally finish what should have only taken an hour or two

bear in mind — this is only one mitten — it is a two handed recipient!