So much for a sweater

This is Eris before I wore it around the house for several nights in a row:

And this is Eris after:

I had really hoped that wearing it would make the sleeves relax enough, but no luck there. Unfortunately, like I mentioned in a previous post, sometimes even a quarter of an inch makes a difference.

Besides, if I’m not entirely happy with it, I’m never going to wear it, and there’s no point in having knit this if I’m not going to get any use out of it. Reknitting, here I come!

At first, I thought the problem was entirely with the gauge changing post-wash. But when the body relaxed to the point I wanted it to, and the sleeves remained slightly uncomfortable, I realized that the gauge change wasn’t the biggest part of the problem.

I’d come up with a sleeve formula on my own. I’m in between sizes as far as upper arm circumference goes, and the proportions in the pattern as written are all wrong for me, given how short my arms are. So when I realized that the gauge wasn’t the real issue, I figured that I’d screwed up the calculations somewhere.

But I looked back at my old notes, and it turns out that after a string of perfect math, I’d rounded down instead of up to get an even stitch count at the beginning. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal. But given the gauge, that’s nearly a half-inch difference in circumference right there. And now I feel really silly for making that particular mistake.

Oh well, lesson learned. It’s my first sweater, so I’m entitled to some learning experiences, right?