We’re back!  Did you notice that we’d been away?  We missed out on the blustery storms in Melbourne and spent the last week staying with my in-laws on the Sunshine Coast.  What beautiful weather, superb beaches, tremendous hospitality, and adventures to the Ginger Factory at Yandina and to Eumundi Markets!  It was lovely for the girls to spend time with their grandparents; we don’t get to see them very often.

While we were away I had my crochet with me, of course!  And boy, did I churn out the pieces of Clare’s cardigan!

This is the Sweetpea Cardigan from Interweave Crochet, Spring 2006.  I am using Harmony yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mills rather than the yarn specified in the pattern.  And this is where learning the hard way comes in.

I did do a swatch, and chose which size pattern to do accordingly.  First step okay.  Back done, fronts done, sleeves done.  One sleeve done twice.  The instructions were a little ambiguous at one stage, and I chose the wrong way to interpret them.  Okay, pull it out, do it again. 

Time to sew the pieces together!  Shoulder seams together fine, then picked up a sleeve to set it in.

Did you notice that the sleeve head is about two inches too short for the armhole?  I certainly did!  What did I learn here?  When substituting yarns, READ THE SCHEMATIC.  I hadn’t been measuring finished dimensions as I went.  So when I merrily crocheted along, making sure that I crocheted until the piece measured 7″ long (for example) I didn’t take into account that I hadn’t corrected the width as well as the length.

So now what do I do?

Do I unpull a few rows from the top of the sleeves, and do increases every second row or so until I get it wide enough?  Which is also going to make it longer – potentially too long?

Or do I just pull both sleeves out completely (there goes four hours of work) and start both sleeves again, chaining on more beginning stitches in the first place to get the width correct AS PER THE SCHEMATIC?

Opinions welcome!  I strongly suspect that I’ll be frogging both sleeves are redoing them completely, dammit!  If only I’d realised to check width as well as length as I went along!

And if you’re wondering, the fronts and backs are possibly (who am I kidding – definitely) going to be narrower than the schematic as compared to the lengths (because once again, I did as the instructions said with continuing until each piece measured a certain length).  I don’t think that it will matter too much in the body of the cardigan though.  I’m still kicking myself.  At least I’ll NEVER make this same mistake again!  Moral of this story – check the schematic when substituting yarn!  Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggh!

By the way, thanks for all the positive feedback on the wrap skirt!  I wore it while we were away – it’s super comfortable.  And it even got featured on the Craftzine blog – thanks for the heads up on that one Jodie!  I’m very flattered (and a little astounded).