the footcube's nose

[cimorene]

One time I tried to knit a raglan sweater following Elizabeth Zimmerman's directions for calculating it and it kept coming out wrong until I gave up and made a peasant sleeve. This was because it was sized too tight and the stitch and row gauge were not equal to each other, but it was too hard to get an accurate gauge measurement I guess? Maybe because the yarn wasn't blocked yet because it was oiled from the spinnery and you have to deglaze it and fluff it when you wash it after knitting, but that's a multi-wash process (that ended up being rinsed and dried like... 5 times? Because you have to use vinegar first for the oil but then you have to wash it until it doesn't smell like vinegar anymore). The sweater looked good when I finally finished it, but it was just slightly too small because it just didn't block big enough - I guess it shrank slightly being washed even cold - and that meant the sleeve holes were too tight and that means I can't wear a tshirt under it (the sleeves make lumps), but because I knitted the front and back in lace it can't be worn as a shirt (which was dumb of me because it's cashmere, so it would make a fine shirt). So the only way it can be worn is with a camisole pretty much, but it's still not comfortable and it's not the looser fit I wanted and the sleeves are too short and I can't wear it over an undershirt. So. It really needs to be frogged and re-knitted, but I don't think I have the stamina to do this lace and double seed stitch panel again.

You'd THINK I'd've learned my lesson about rate of decrease that time, but I decided to make a cover for my footcube using mitered squares this week, and I followed a standard pattern that has you decrease twice every other row, with the result that the square is stretching out longer and longer towards the bind-off corner opposite the center of the cast-on row. It makes a little dangly proboscis, not elephantine, more like you'd see on a tapir or a dik-dik.



I had already woven the ends in though, so I refuse to frog it and start over. I blocked it larger than the top of the footcube and I plan to just sew it up with the excess inside. To avoid any more trouble I'm making the side panels without miters though.

Comments

[cesy]

I'm glad to hear it's not just me having that trouble with triangles

[cimorene]

The Trouble with Triangles 😂

[james]

I have done mitered corner squares for dishcloths all the time, and have not encountered this problem? I wonder if you did one decrease each row, it would turn out better? Because you get that elongated thing when you are not decreasing enough, fast enough - like maybe are you absolutely sure you did 2 decreases on the decrease row.

(Because that is the problem I have with shawls if there are 2 decreases or increases on a row, I do one and forget to do the other.)

[cimorene]

No, I am absolutely sure all decreases are accounted for! Increasing the ratio would be necessary to correct the shape, so once per row wouldn't do it. You'd have to add extra paired decreases on some of the even rows, perhaps a total of 8 more sets on a square this size (120 st, 120 rows).

[anatsuno]

I think mitered corners make squares at this rate of decrease when knitted in stockinette, where the height of a stitch (average) is about equal to its width, a thing which is not true of the stockinette stitch (more rectangular - higher than it's wide)... That might be one of the sources of the issue here? <3

[cimorene]

Er... do you mean they make non-squares with loopy corners when you... use some other not-stockinette stitch? Like do you mean garter stitch, for example?

[anatsuno]

Yes, sorry, my poor brain fell down on the job. The sentence was supposed to mean "I think mitered corners make squares at this rate of decrease when knitted in garter, where the stitch is more square-ish". Sorry for messing it up! /o\

[cimorene]

That makes sense! I hadn't thought about the stitch shape but when I look at garter stitch it's easy to see.