Crafty Conscience

Every knitter (or crafter, for that matter) has an inner voice. Some refer to this voice as the Crafty Conscience, and just like the normal Jimminy-Cricket sort of conscience, this little (but insistent) little voice is usually right, but rarely heeded.

Take, for instance, this cardigan.

I had so much fun knitting the February Lady cardigan that I had to knit another one as a gift for - - - - - -. Instead of sticking to the original pattern, however, I thought I'd get all clever and use a different stitch pattern instead of the regular lace pattern called for in the original pattern.
At this point, my Crafty Conscience starts whispering, "if you liked the original so much, why alter it? Why not stay with what works? You could be making a big mistake", to which the Knaughty Knitter replied, "awww shucks, why stick with tried and true? Let's have some excitement and shake things up a little!".

Guess who got ignored?

I knit on.

Then, after I'd already knitted several inches and as many hours into the cardigan, I realized that my math gauge was off (not surprisingly, we are talking about me here, the math-genius-not-really). Instead of having 18 stitches per inch, I had 16. Silly me, I figured that wouldn't make much of a difference.

Now, if you can do any addition, you'll notice that if a cardigan needs to be 36" around, and if every inch is added to by an extra quarter inch due to missed gauge, a 36" cardigan rapidly turns into a 70" cardigan that could wrap around The Republic of China (or thereabouts, remember, I'm not good with math).

Now here Crafty Conscience pipes up again in a louder, more insistent whisper that "perhaps it would be better to start at the beginning and try it over. After all, wouldn't it be better to frog the cardigan now than after I've knitted hours and hours into it?"

Guess who got ignored?

I knit on.

I figured that if I just skipped a couple of stitches at the bottom of the underarm, it'd bring the cardigan tapered in nicely and it would go back to it's originally designed size.
Well, it worked.

Sort of.

The bottom half of the cardigan went back to it's intended size, but the bunching grapes of wrath around the shoulders refused to be squashed or smeared into submission.

By this time, I had knit the ENTIRE body (both fronts and backs) of the cardigan, as well as the sleeve, in my vain effort to show my Crafty Conscience that I knew better.

I, the knitter of note, the supreme head of all things sweaterly, would not be defeated.

Heh.
My *$%$*%&$* Crafty Conscience is laughing her head off.