Make a Gauge Swatch!

Take time to make a gauge swatch!

Every knitting pattern has this advice.

The only problem is that I do make the gauge swatch being ever so careful to keep my tension just so, then something happens when I make the garment.  I end up with arms too long or the large I thought I was knitted suddenly turns out to be a small.

My problem is that I usually knit in front of the TV, multitasking while I k2, p1, 2lc, p1 k2 while watching Gibbs & his team chase down some bad guy or Sam and Dean hunting down a demon.  All this action on TV counteracts the calming effect of knitting and sometimes I lose my place.

Pictured below is a vest I just finished.  The 2 x 2 ribbing is a no brainer, but the eyelet top was another thing.  It is my first project done from a chart.    I unraveled both sides at least twice.  Maybe more. 

Vest I made using Vanna's Choice in Purple Mist.

It's no so much achieving calmness from the knitting as it's going into the knitted with the calmness. Anxiety, excitement, and other emotions will show up in knitting.  Excitement and other tensing emotions can cause an tightening of gauge therefore what might have been a 4 stitches per inch gauge suddenly becomes 6 or 8 stitches per inch.  Feeling too relaxed and comfortable can result in the opposite of two few stitches per inch thus the extra long arms of a sweater I once made. 

Although not perfect, I am proud of this vest.  I learned that a bit of patience is very helpful, that knitting is not a race.  Slow and steady will get it done.

Moral of the story is that same as the Hare and the Tortoise.