Project Report 26.35: Drops Did Me Dirty

This week, my adventures in stitching led me to ponder the questions: Have I been duped, or am I just a dumbass? Is this misleading, or am I a moron?

Before I tell you what happened, it's important to remember that two things can be true. 

It all started when I decided to frog my Grandpa Cardigan.

This is a project I finished last fall, before I started the blog. It was a major undertaking for me. It was my first cardigan and my first cable sweater. I was so proud to have finished it. But I never wore it. 

Now, with several more sweaters under my belt and a better understanding of what I like in my clothing, I felt better qualified to troubleshoot this project.

The biggest problem is that I knit this in Lion Brand Coboo, which has very little structure. The fabric couldn't hold itself up under the weight of the buttons, so I could feel the buttons swinging against my legs when I put it on. The drapey quality of the yarn also meant that the shawl collar was doing no such shawl-collary things. I thought about ripping out the trim and trying a different collar/button band combo, but that wasn't my only concern.

There's something wrong with the sleeves. The decreases aren't charted, so after working the first sleeve and hating it, I ripped it out and worked reverse stockinette on the underside of the sleeve so that I wouldn't have to look at mutant cables swallowing each other. But even after making that adjustment, the sleeves are a weird shape.

I don't fully understand how to make a proper set-in sleeve, let alone a seamless set-in sleeve, so I was perfectly happy to blindly follow the instructions when I made this. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced this sweater understands set-in sleeves either. The short rows go alllll the way around the sleeve cap, which is beautiful to look at and satisfying to execute, but it means that your forearm ends up attached to your body in an unnatural way.

So after frogging the whole thing and questioning why I wove in my ends as if someone were trying to steal them, this is what I was left with: 

Since I was itching to start a new project and prove to myself that this yarn wasn't a total waste of money, I cast on for Drops pattern #266-18, "Mossy Trails Top." 

This is what the sample looks like:

Image © DROPS Design

 

And this is what the chart looks like:

Image © DROPS Design

 

And this is what I made:

Friends, one of these things is not like the others.

It took me two days of staring at this and counting stitches to figure out what went wrong.

The chart for my size does not match the sample photos. Upon closer inspection, NONE of the charts match the sample photos.

The sample photo has cable columns separated by seven stitches of stockinette, as do most of the project photos on Ravelry.

The charts for Size XS specify a ten-stitch stockinette column and the charts for Size S call for a 12-stitch stockinette column. The charts for Size M have twice as many cables. 

Yes, that's right, twice as many cables. For Size M, you work a cable column, then seven stitches, then a cable column, then one stitch -- and repeat. Cable, seven stitches, cable, one stitch, cable, seven stitches, cable, one stitch, and so on and so forth. That is not the thing I signed up to make. 

Upon realizing this discrepancy, I was so angry, I made a proper gauge swatch to demonstrate. That's right, I rage-knit this:

I don't know how this fell through the cracks at Drops, nor do I understand how 20 people have knit this top without mentioning that the stitch counts don't match.

At any rate, I've abandoned this project and returned to other, less angst-inducing knits. 

As predicted, I have finished the body of my Alberta Sunshine top and am working on the sleeves.

 

I also cast on a fresh sock, just to have something mindless on the go. This is a shortie version of my free self-striping sock pattern in West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-Ply in "Mallard."

 

And in case you missed it, the latest update in our Blandy Experimental Farm knit-along focused on the endangered butternut tree.