Seetaa no Monogatari Part 4

Up-date: I got to about 6.5 inches (a total of 51 rows, including the collar) before class ... 

Then for our last class, it was all about show and tell and lessons learned.  Only one of my classmates showed up and she had a beautiful sweater coming along. :)  She even made it to dividing up for the sleeves and body! :)  I was envious! :P  Another of Kim's regular also was there and from November 1st, she made nearly 9 inches of her sweater!  She said that she had made more but had to rip out 4 inches because her sleeves were coming out funky.  It was amazing to see how much she did!   I've been at this for four (mark it, 4!) weeks and at most, I've only got 6.5 inches!  (Ok, if you count all the inches I ripped out and so forth, I might have more but seriously!  You can only count what's really there so, I've only got 6.5 inches! :'( :P)  

Then, it was finally time for my show and tell and ... while I clearly understood what I needed to do, how to do it and know what it should look like (as I could clearly articulate the issue(s) and associated resolution(s) for other people's sweaters during their show and tell), I didn't do that for my own sweater! *sob*! :'(

Here's what my sweater looked like by the time I got to class:

Not bad, right?  Seems to look ok, right?  But, see these parts:

That was the part in which I started doing my "math" (in Part 3.5).

So what's wrong with it, you ask?  Well, basically - everything! :(  It's not suppose to look like this.  It's suppose to look more like the upper portion of the sweater and it doesn't!  After talking to everyone and then telling my tale, here's my lessons learned:

1. Pay Attention!!  Truth be told, I was having soooo much fun going in the round that often times, I had forgotten to increase when I should have or worse yet, increase on one side and completely and obliviously forget to do it on the other side. :(  I was totally in the knitting zone and completely (and literally) zoned out! :P  And, because of this, that's why (while you can't see it), at one point, I was forcing my sweater to have the same number of stitches on each side (both in the body and the sleeves).  Thus, skewing the sweater.
2. Have a method.  By the time I created a method for myself to remind me which row to increase (or simply go in the round), it was too late. :(  I needed use a method to remind me to increase (or not) immediately after I did the first six rows (for the rolled collar), not many, many stitches and rows later, when it's too late. :P
3. Increase my body and sleeves together.  You may not have noticed it but, I wasn't always increasing my body and sleeves together (in the same row).  As you saw from my chart in Part 3.5, I tried to increase my sleeves with the body but, didn't necessarily increase it with every increase I did for the body.  Hence, skewing it further.  Plus, I think it was further off then it really should've been because it was already off to begin with! :P
4. Do the Math. Now that I know what my row gauge is and how to calculate how much I need for my body and sleeves (for when I'm ready to split them off), I also know that I can't simply increase every other round and then try to figure out (as I get closer to dividing out the sleeves and body) how many rows I need to go in the round before I increase again.  

So, what happens now?  Well, I need to rip everything out.  Yup, you heard me - I need to start over (again).  I also need to do the math and figure out which rows I need to increase on and which rows I need to simply go in the round.

I couldn't quite bear ripping just quite yet so, I decided to work on the math first:

1. I need to (re-)cast on 126 stitches, of which, 46 stitches are for the body (on each side, with a total of 92 stitches for the body), 15 stitches are for each sleeve and I have 4 seam stitches.
2. I know that the total stitches needed for the body to be 181 and 55 stitches for each of the sleeves.  So, the real work is to calculate at which row I'll get to the correct number of stitches for either the sleeves or the body, whichever comes first.  At a total of 181 stitches, that means, I need a total of 89 stitches or 45 stitches on each side.  For the sleeves, I need to add a total of 40 stitches for each sleeve.
3. Since I know that I knit 8 rows to create one (1) inch, then to make a total of seven (7) inches (which I need before I can see if I can divide the body and sleeves), I need a total of 56 rows.  I also need to make sure that my gauge remains consistent at 5.25 stitches per inch.
4. So, here's what I'm thinking I need to do:

 for the Body                       Sleeves
M1 = total sts added 4    M1 = total sts added 2    => Row 1
K 2x (Knit in the round 2x)                                      => Row 2-3
M1 = total sts added 8    M1 = total sts added 4    => Row 4
K 2x                                                                        => Row 5-6
M1 = total sts added 12  M1 = total sts added 6    => Row 7
K 2x                                                                        => Row 8-9 *check gauge!
M1 = total sts added 16  M1 = total sts added 8    => Row 10
K 2x                                                                        => Row 11-12
M1 = total sts added 20  M1 = total sts added 12  => Row 13
K 2x                                                                        => Row 14-15
M1 = total sts added 24  M1 = total sts added 14  => Row 16
K 2x                                                                        => Row 17-18
M1 = total sts added 28  M1 = total sts added 16  => Row 19
K 2x                                                                        => Row 20-21
M1 = total sts added 30  M1 = total sts added 18  => Row 22
K 2x                                                                        => Row 23-24
M1 = total sts added 32  M1 = total sts added 20  => Row 25 *check gauge!
K 2x                                                                        => Row 26-27
M1 = total sts added 36  M1 = total sts added 22  => Row 28
K 2x                                                                        => Row 29-30
M1 = total sts added 40  M1 = total sts added 24  => Row 31
K 2x                                                                        => Row 32-33
M1 = total sts added 44  M1 = total sts added 26  => Row 34
K 2x                                                                        => Row 35-36
M1 = total sts added 48  M1 = total sts added 28  => Row 37
K 2x                                                                        => Row 38-39
M1 = total sts added 52  M1 = total sts added 30  => Row 40
K 2x                                                                        => Row 41-42
M1 = total sts added 56  M1 = total sts added 32  => Row 43
K 2x                                                                        => Row 44-45
M1 = total sts added 60  M1 = total sts added 34  => Row 46
K 2x                                                                        => Row 47-48
M1 = total sts added 64  M1 = total sts added 36  => Row 49 *check gauge!
K 2x                                                                        => Row 50-51
M1 = total sts added 68  M1 = total sts added 38  => Row 52
K 2x                                                                        => Row 53-54
M1 = total sts added 72  M1 = total sts added 40  => Row 55
K 1x                                                                        => Row 56

Check to see if the sweater fits and is ready to divide for the sleeves and body.  Put in a life line!!

If so, divide for the body and add the seam stitches to the body count = 2 sts => 74 total sts added.


This should get me a total of 7 inches needed and get me close to the total stitch count needed for the body ((46 * 2 = 92) + 74 = 166) and the sleeves (15 + 40 = 55).  I think I can add the remaining stitches I need for the body (181 - 166 = 15-16 stitches) to the side (like a gusset).

I'm going to fly this by Kim to see if I'm calculating this correctly and start ripping. :)  I think I'll be having a lot more Seetaa no Monogatari Parts than I expected. :P  Oh well ... I'm going to have a very well fitting sweater at the end of this adventure (although I'm not entirely confident that I can actually finish it this month at this juncture)! :D  At the very least, I'm probably going to meet the NaNoSweMo challenge of completing 50,000 stitches this month at the rate I'm going!  I think I might've done about 10,033 stitches already with what I've done and all that stuff I ripped out and put back! :P  Let's just hope that this is the last ripping I need to do! :P lol :)