The Fluffy Sweater is all finished! No pictures yet – I had to steam the shoulder seams and they weren’t dry in time for a photo shoot. But I do have these to show you:

As you can see, I am religious about swatching. Since I am using Patons’ Classic Merino Wool (what is up with me and using the yarn the pattern calls for lately?) I started with the size 7 needles the pattern suggested. Now, as a general rule of thumb, I almost always start swatching on a needle one size smaller than what the pattern wants, but I have never used this yarn or a Patons pattern before so I started at the beginning. I should have gone ahead with the size down – I made it all the way down to 5s before the tension came out right. Then just to be sure, I blocked the swatches.

Lots of people will tell you that this step isn’t really necessary if you aren’t working with cotton (which streatches when it’s wet, wreaking havoc with the size of your sweater unless you measure your stitches AFTER blocking). But I’ve noticed that blocking can make a difference (occasionally significant) with everything. So if you’ve bothered to knit all of those swatches, go just one step further to ensure that you end up with a garment that fits.

As you can see, after blocking the gauge is still just slightly off. This means I am actually getting 19 stitches to four inches instead of the 20 the patterns wants. BOO. This could make 1.75 inches worth of difference in the overall size of the sweater (it’s hard to tell for sure, the swatch is in stockinette and the pattern is full of cables which affect the tension but the results of my math don’t look good). All of this to say: I am going to try it on 4s tonight and see how that goes. If that comes out way too small, I will make a small instead of a medium and hope for the best. I find it very hard to believe that I knit that much more loosely that the folks who designed this cardigan. Maybe this is the knitting gods paying me back for my delightful tension experience with the Fluffy Sweater.