In May when my dad was in the hospital, I got a LOT of knitting done. One of the items I started and finished in that period was the Mulberry Hat below from Modern Top Down Knitting. Cute huh?
Well, what I got at the end of the project looked nothing like the photo above. I had my heart set on using a beautiful soft mohair silk blend from my generous sister-in-law (thanks Sarah!) but it was a thicker yarn than the pattern called for. No worries, I thought. I will just re-calculate the gauge using the measurements and the new yarn. It seemed easy enough at the time.
Looking back, I made two big mistakes. I knit a swatch but… 1) measured it in the dark and 2) did not wash and block the swatch. Why in the dark? Because Mom and I were knitting outside the Sow’s Ear for Late Night Knitting. I was too lazy to go inside where the light was better. Why is washing and blocking the swatch so important? Because some fibers actually get BIGGER after they are washed. Cottons and bamboo do for sure, but I didn’t realize mohair and silk might as well. If I had taken the time to do that, I would have realized my math mistakes and altered the number of stitches.
Something else not working in my favor was the fact that in an item like a hat, if you are off just a half a stitch in gauge, you can add several inches to the circumference of the hat.
This post is a warning to all of you knitters out there. Always knit a swatch and always wash and block it. Don’t be lazy like me.
Here’s the finished hat. Grace agreed to model it for me. We have the same size head surprisingly (all that hair I think).
danielleengel 