We will take a short break from our Spain travelogue for a brief knitting update. After I finished the Peace Fleece sweater, I was one project short on the needles, so I started a new sweater. What do knitbloggers do when they run into a pattern glitch? Go to their readers, of course!
Here’s what I’m making:
Pretty eh? So why has it generated a string of menopausally-induced swear words in the Knitting Doctor house, you might ask?
It’s from Jo Sharp’s Handknitting Collection, Book One. I bought the book and yarn some time last year, I think, and it’s been aging in the stash until just the perfect moment. I dug it out last week, dutifully swatched, and surprisingly got perfect gauge with the yarn and needles recommended in the pattern. I cast on for my chosen size and was off doing that ribbing section. The yarn, by the way, is Jo Sharp DK Wool, which is heavenly.
After I finished the ribbing, I set it aside and looked at the cable pattern. It was written out, not charted, so I printed out some graph paper from here, and spent an evening charting it out, as I find cable charts much easier to follow. I grumbled just a bit about good old Jo not including charts with the pattern, but figured that some editor cut them due to space considerations.
The next evening I started on the first pattern row, and came up two stitches short at the end of the row. I counted, recounted, and my stitches were right, it was the pattern row that was short by two stitches. After a few swear words, I did the Google thing and found the corrections page* on the Jo Sharp website. Yup, it was the pattern that was wrong. I needed to adjust the stitch count on the moss stitch panels in the body section. This was a simple fix, I just needed to go back to the beginning of the row and reknit the first cable row. I did that, grumbling a little more at good old Jo. Then I looked again at the corrections page, and read the rest of the story. Not only was the stitch count incorrect for the two larger sizes, ALL of the body measurements had been revised. Here’s a table to explain:
Bodice Circumference (inches)
Published pattern…
A B C D
42.5 46.5 50.5 54.5
Corrected…
A B C D
33.5 38 39.5 44
For the Diagram width measurement (the width of the front/back pieces, finished), here are the measurements for size C, which is what I was going to make.
Published: 25.5
Corrected: 20
Would this piss anybody else off royally? Does anybody else think that an error of over TEN inches in body circumference is unacceptable? I took the thing off the needles to measure it, in case their “corrected” measurements are wrong, but nooooooo. I am still perfectly on gauge, and my measurements match the corrected measurements pretty well. I briefly thought of finding somebody who fit the size C measurements and packaging up the whole damn mess and mailing it to them to finish. As this is supposed to be a relaxed fit, not the Jane Russell look, it will get frogged again, and I’ll start over at the larger size. Right at the moment, the whole thing is sitting over there on a chair, in time-out. Fortunately for whoever answers the phones for good old Jo, I bought an extra ball of yarn when I purchased this, for insurance. I guess I’ll need it.
* Here, if anybody is interested. All of the pattern books have at least one correction listed, so check it out.
It’s almost enough to make a girl give up knitting for relaxation!!! You definitely need another trip to Spain!
Cute sweater, but what a pain in the rear! I’m just glad you figured things out before knitting the whole thing.
Yes, that would definitely made me nuts, especially since I’m not even the D size! But it is a pretty sweater and I LOVE Jo Sharp DK wool. Good luck from here on out.
Wha??? I understand a small size difference, perhaps caught when samples are knit up. But TEN INCHES? That’s a pretty large difference, in my book. Time out is definitely deserved.
Um, yeah. I think I’d blow a gasket over an error of this magnitude, so ‘royally pissed’ would probably be an understatement. ; ) Really pretty sweater, though — reminds me of one I’ve been eyeing up and making mental notes about whenever a particular jewelry store commercial airs…
Wow. I’m new at this but I would’ve thought a pattern book would be a lot more accurate than that. I know there are occasional misprints but that’s a bit much.
It is a really pretty sweater and I can see why you want to knit it but at this rate, you may need a good supply of Xanax to go with the pattern corrections.
The only consolation is that, once you get it figured out, it should be a really great sweater — looks it from here!
Yup, that would do it. Drive me right over the edge. I truly don’t understand these pattern designers and their lack of attention to detail. It’s their JOB, fer gawd’s sake.
Time out, then deep breath. When it’s right.
I suppose a severe diet is out of the question, huh? I once had a quilting pattern from McCall’s that was off by 3/8″ on each piece. There were 800 pieces. You do the the math. It put me off quilting for about 10 years! A good shot of rum and coke or wine should do trick, as long as you use a plastic glass.
The sweater is gorgeous Lorette! I would contact Jo Sharp and complain and let them know errors of this magnitude are NOT acceptable! I know it wont help you but maybe in the future…
Or maybe they’ll send you free yarn 🙂
Jeezopete, that’s a HUGE error. Somebody needs a good ass-whuppin’.
hi Lorette! I am making that sweater too; through absolute pure luck, I happened to stumble across the corrections before I started knitting (phew!). It’s a really pretty pattern!
Not to cause you to tear your hair out further, but I also did a little web-search, and another blogger alluded to a mistake in the cable pattern. While I am just knitting the pattern as written, I believe that there is a mistake in either row 1 or row 7 of the pattern – I think that one of the “C2B” notations should be a “C2F”. As it is written, the very middle “strands” of the cable always cross right-over-left, never left-over-right. Once I figured this out, though, it didn’t bug me enough to make me rip everything out! I’m simply considering this to be a “design element” in my version…..
I can’t wait to see your progress!
That is a beautiful sweater, but the errors!!!
I wonder what process they do to test the patterns.
Grrrrr indeed.
BTW, what color are you making the sweater in?
That sweater is on my To Knit list so I’m glad you pointed out the corrections. I even have the yarn in The Stash for it. I hope it works out for you.
Is one extra ball even going to be enough for 10 inches around? Incredible. . . Maybe someone did a metric to Imperial conversion wrong? If the engineers at NASA do it . . .
I don’t know about you, but I always like my staghorn cables going the other direction, pointing up, as it were. And if you have to start again . . .
Allow me to add some pre-menstrually-induced swear words to the pile! That’s just unbelievable. This one of the reasons I don’t like to pay for patterns. You buy a book, you expect the items to be test knitted in all sizes and then you find corrections on some page a month later. What about people who(believe it or not) don’t have access to the internet? Geniuses. I hope your third attempt works out this time..
Oy! I’m sure it will be worth your effort when you have a beautiful sweater to wear! Hang in there!!
I’ve looked at that sweater often…but the moss stitch give me hives and I move on…
maybe I should rip my chester sweater and make this pattern instead…need some stash ripening time I think though…